Winter Series Race Reports
Race 3 Winter series
The third race of the winter series was held on a beautiful sunny day on Coromandel harbour and 10 yachts came out to compete.
Unfortunately, the wind was reluctant to play ball, so the start was delayed an hour to give it time to come to the party while the crews sunbathed and told war stories.
Eventually, a massed start was made and we all headed for the shortest course in our island race arsenal in a steadily more fickle wind. At times, yachts within a few hundred metres of each other on the same tack would be 30 degrees different in their point of sailing. Maku, Special FX and Wright One were making the best of the conditions and managed to get around Cow and Calf and head back to the start finish line while the rest of us struggled in dying and even more fickle wind shifts.
Spinnakers were hoisted on the return to home, and while they filled for a while, eventually they just draped themselves over the foredecks hanging listlessly. Maku, Special FX and Wright One managed to get home in that order, but the rest of the fleet retired defeated by the lack of wind.
The Race organiser managed to step blindly into the open hatch on the foredeck in an attempt to adjust the spinnaker, resulting in severe bruising to his ribs and leaving his crew to finish packing up the sails and a trip to A&E. No further damage but sore for a while.
Next race not until 29th as per the calendar.
Blue skies Rex
Race 2 Winter Series
Another great day sailing for the 7 yachts that turned out for the day.
The steady E breeze made for some very fair sailing conditions, especially for handicap racing. The RACE CONTROLLER had a few issues with arriving on time, exacerbated by running out of fuel in his outboard on the way out to his yacht and then discovering he had left his phone back in the car. Fortunately, the fuel for the outboard was on the yacht. As a consequence, the forecast race time of 11 am was delayed by 30 minutes.
Div B set out 10minutes before Div A and the lead two boats in Div B held off a fast charging Trifecta who was relishing the conditions and crossed the line with Dawn Song 1st and Anitra 2nd. Special FX just held off Wright One at the line with Libby a few seconds behind. Kilmarnock still has teething problems and retired untried for the day to be replaced by Slice of Heaven for the 2nd race.
For the 2nd race the delay between divisions was reduced to 7 minutes and although Slice of Heaven was a bit late at the start she showed her pedigree and managed to make 2nd place for line honours behind Trifecta. Dawn Song and Anitra had a real battle, with Dawn Song just taking line honours by 6 seconds. Special FX managed to hold off a fast spinnaker finish from Wright One with Libby a few seconds behind.
See you all in a fortnight, don’t forget , start time will be 11am
Race 1 Winter Series
Despite the forecasted light winds, a steady breeze kicked in for the 9 yachts that turned out for the first race of the winter series.
While we are on the subject of breezes, it has been noted for some time that the breeze regularly seems to die away as the afternoon progresses and that has a huge disadvantage to the yachts at the rear of the fleet. This weekend was an example of that with the last 3 boats only having the incoming tide to get them to the line. As a consequence of that I propose to start races an hour earlier at 11 am on race days.
As per usual, race day had its share of dramas, The first Mate on Kilmarnock forgot to duck and coped the boom across his head, losing his expensive prescription lenses overboard in the process and bleeding profusely until his skipper provided him with a turban to stem the flow and a pair of $2 glasses from the warehouse that managed to restore his vision enough to go on. This was before the race even started. But hold everything, that was not all that befell the victims sailing Kilmarnock, when rounding Shag rock in close company with Dec Sun, an errant wave got hold of a corner of the spinnaker in the bag tied to the pulpit and dragged most of it overboard. The subsequent retrieval of this untimely drogue set them back quite some distance. Rumour has it that they should have joined Libby for the day, which never raised a sail in anger. Dawn Song got a little tear in her foresail, hardly worth mentioning by comparison.
To the achievers, Trifecta took line honours by 27seconds from Special FX, followed by Wright One, Dawn Song, Dec Sun, Anitra, Kilmarnock, Focal Point, and the dying or dead wind left Moon Shadow with a DNF. Handicaps are a different story, Congratulations to Anitra for a first.
