Thursday 25th November Start 1900hrs
Our sail selection was for the small kite, and although we were a little undergunned on the start line, this ended up being a good call as the further out we got the windier it got. We came close to botching up the start when the wind caught the kite and blew it out of the bag before we were ready to hoist, however a little trick bill and I worked out was that the spinnakker will actually sit there, almost in the water, without causing to much of a problem, and on this occassion we just left it there until we were ready to charge the line, then I winched like mad to get it up, and our start ended up being not to bad. The nowcasting was indicating the wind was 30-35kts at channel island and 22-25 at Bean Rck.Things got real exciting as we approached Channel Island with the wind increase, we successfully managed to put in our first Gybe, in the dark, with fairly decent waves, wind gusting close to 40kts, with kite up, I am on the helm concentrating like mad on the wind angle instrument as we were riding that fine line with the wind directly behind, I couldnt even look at the speedo, but Tom managed a glance which had us at 14.6 kts SOG, on the GPS, the other speed instrument (the new Raymarine one was giving us false readings). Then as we were setting up for our second Gybe, the down haul breaks and all hell breaks loose on the foredeck. The spinnaker boom is flailing about a fair bit, I end up dumping the sheet to the brace, the sail floging loudly from the top of the mast, Tom manages to get a hand to the sheet and get it down, I am worried about the boom (we may have lost it), the night is jet black dark and its hard to make out anything from the cockpit. Then I see it pointing at the sky, the beak is snapped and the spinnaker appears to be unharmed. Dolphins surrounded us during our ordeal and provided us with a brilliant display of phosphorescence on such a dark night.
After that the wind eased off a bit, and if we were feeling game we probably could have tried putting up the small gennaker, we decided to put on the tiller pilot and Tom went down for a rest as we made our approach on Cuvier, I had been on deck by myself for about an hour when the tiller pilot gave way and the boat threw itself into a 360, I am glad the boat behind us was paying attention as the quickly altered course to avoid risk of a collision, what had happened was the metal pin attached to the tiller which the tiller pilot attaches to had given way, I was able to grab it and prevent it going over the side and put it my pocket, this meant we had no autopilot for the night as the amount of weather helm we were experiencing would be too much for any repair we were able to do,needless to say we both got little sleep during the night.
The next day under much lighter conditions we were able to undergo repairs to the tiller pilot which basically involved some contact adhesive, with lots of string wrapped around it. We put up the Code 0 and started to bring in a boat which was ahead of us which we thought might have been Paea 11. We managed to pull them up and overtake them using this sail. This took most of the day, and by 6pm, we could see White Island a good 30-40 or so miles away, our good sailing conditions were about to change as we sailed under a line of cloud, this was like a mini front, and as we embarked on our second night at sea, we had a wind increase and a wind change, which meant we now had to tack towards the island and it was slow going, our consolation was an amazingly beautiful moonrise just after midnight. Which made it easier to identify the volkener rocks. At 3am we round White Island, and Panaea 11 appears from a longer tack to arrive about 100 metres behind us as we round. The boats that were faster than us to White island, managed to get around before the wind change, avoided the long tack up to white Island, and actually managed to utilise the increased wiindspeed under spinnaker in the right direction (towards home). as we rounded we both got our spinnakkers up in the dark, Panaea 11 was quicker than us, as we were pretty buggered after another sleepless night. but we acheived it opting for the smaller kite to make things more manageable.Tom and I were both beat and we managed to get Wilson (tiller pilot) going in the light conditions. as the sun was coming up we both dozed on deck for several hours, Wilson managed to keep it together to allow us this rest, and pleasantly we had put Panaea 11 behind us again. When we got our wits about us we made a really good quick change to the masthead spinnaker as the wind had now lightened considerably. Finally some breeze kicked in in the afternoon, and we were gifted with perfect Code 0 conditions, we even hit 8-9 knots a few times, this run lasted for three hours, we had to drop it in the end due to the strain on the top of the mast, we had trouble furling it, and I ended up in a restling match with very big opponent, eventally got it below unfurled where it made it presence felt by the amount of space it now took up. With the beginning of our third night, We were now having to tack in close to the land, and we could see Panaea 11 behind us,and now Open Country ahead of us,Panaea 11 were a fair way off but they seemed to be gaining a little, Our nights work ended up being "the rounding of Cuvier", We didnt expect it to take the whole night!, and it was a very frustrating time, as Panaea 11 overtook us, and although we had good boatspeed of about 6kts, we had to tack all the way, Tidal or wind influences meant each tack was a poor one, the GPS telling the sad story. It was during this night that I got to play with the tacking function on the tiller pilot putting in a number of tacks by myself for the first time, when Tom gets on deck he inserts some energy to the situation, and I stay up to help with the rounding but am soooo tired. Finally we round at 4.15 am, and another two hrs sailing in light airs has us lined up for colville channel, the tide is going to be a big factor here, and the good news is the incoming tide is about to begin. We would never have got through the channel without this tidal assistance we used the whole 6hrs of the incoming sailing with our code 0 to crawl up to and past channel island. Panaea 11 clearly visible to us, has had a couple of luckier breaks than us. Lots of tacking with the code 0 in light airs was good practice for us. at about 4pm, A huge area of calm settled over the area, and it was a glass out as far as you could see, we watched as panaea 11 pulled the pin, and it became obvious to me that we werent going to meet Toms work commitment in the morning if we pesevered, so we made the call to do the same. Although we didnt get a result in this race, We had completed our qualifying miles for the upcoming RNI, it was also the longerst race Tom and I had competed in two handed, and we had experienced alot that will be important to reflect on and improve on before the RNI.
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