We sailed this race on ZGY
Predictions of light winds didn't come true (thank God) and we started in about 15-18 knots of wind, A spinnaker start and it was straight up with the masthead kite. We started toward the back but quickly began working our way through the fleet, our tactic was to start with the pole on the starboard side and head out into the Rangi channel avoiding the traffic jam and fickle winds around North head, We found ourselves in a good position surrounded by five pied pipers by Rangi light these were behind us. Being on the right hand side of the rhumb line was advantageous because it meant we could move onto it with more speed and increased angle.
We were closely watching crocodile who had chosen a course closer in well to the left but it wasn't until Navy Buoy that we used our advantage coming back onto the rhumb line and pulling ahead of them. There were two boats ahead off us now which we think were Elliot 7 and Assailant.
Around Navy Buoy we dropped the kite a little messily and were hoping for more reaching conditions so we could keep sailing with the big sails, but unfortunately the wind was about 30 degrees and forward of the beam.
We sailed on with two sails for a while before I suggested trying the fractional gennaker, shortly after mentioning this the wind seemed to majically come around more onto the beam, up went the sail and away we went, alot more speed and alot of weather helm (a bit of a struggle to hang on to really), we weren't quite able to steer our course, but it was decided the increased speed was more important. The wind was quite strong at this stage and the boat was rounding up on the gusts, heading downwind a bit more prevented this, but sent us further afield. We had our sites set on Assailant who were going remarkably fast considering they were two sailing reaching, however we were going a little faster and gaining on them all the time, nearing Waiheke we were hoping the wind would drop a little (in the lee of the island) so we could get back on the rhumb line but it didnt it increased. We considered dropping the sail but then suddenly I was able to lay our course and we scraped inside gannet rock, close enough behind Assailant to almost make out the name on her hull. Then we were really in the lee, the genny came down and there was time to pack both it and the kite away and have some lunch and a drink of water. Assailant was creeping away again enjoying the light conditions, we were going to have to work hard to hang on to our gains on the rest of the fleet until we could get back into some stronger wind. Tacking down the Waiheke Channel seemed to take a while, Assailant made alot more ground on us and were quickly well in the distance, we gave up hope of catching them, and were anxiously watching the boats behind us thankfully still a fair way back.
Finnaly we said good by to the Waiheke island coastline and began beating our way towards Browns Island in a stiff chop and a strong headwind, conditions ZGY loves!, the boats behing us faded into the distance and Assailant appeared to be growing slightly larger (or was it just our imagination). The wind seemed to keep getting stronger and stronger so we put in a reef, still feeling a bit overpowered, we put in another and with two reefs in we were sailing very well and not rounding up. At Browns Island light darkness fell and the wind dropped, we immediately shook out both reefs and headed for bean rock we were sailing as high as we could while still keeping good speed on the boat but still not quite able to lay it, the wind was shifted backwards and forwards so we were constantly altering our course to make the most of any gains that were afforded us, we lost sight of Assailant in the darkness. But looking behind us we could see a speckling of lights from the rest of the pack. As we rounded Bean Rock Assailant tacked in front of us they werent very far ahead of us at all! and may have had difficulty picking out the finish line. Tom and I knew exactly where we we going and tacked in, we had come very close to catching them and must have made a heap of ground up between Browns and Bean Rock, we crossed the finish (sailing close to the committee boat shouting out our boat name) about three minutes behind them (a remarkable catch up).
Overall a great race.
We await the results.
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