Devonport Yacht Club Newsletter

Martin Foster (MNZM) and the Late Sir Peter Blake (KBE) initiated the concept of a two person race around the North Island. In the inaugural race was run by the Devonport Yacht Club  in 1977 competitors and spectators alike witnessed H.R.H. Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh officiating at the start in the presence of Her Majesty, the Queen. (Apparently, Sally attended the start that year on Devonport Wharf, however does not remember much of it as she was under 1 year old.)

Devonport Yacht Club is Sally family’s local yacht club, with her family cruising boat OHMS being hauled there each winter.  Expedition Coppelia featured in the DYC’s latest news letter.  The article is reproduced below.

EXPEDITION COPPELIA - ROUND THE NORTH ISLAND TWO HANDED

By Sally Garrett

 

The Round the North Island Two Handed starts in Auckland on February 19th and circles the North Island in an anti-clockwise direction, with 24 hour stopover in Mangonui and 48 hour stopovers in Wellington and Napier. The 1,244 nautical mile marathon is run every 3 years by SSANZ, the race in 2011 is restricted to 40 boats. Some say it is a race where you make friends for life, other say it is a race that can end lifelong friendships.

Since I was a child and saw the North Island map on the DYC floor I have wanted to complete the race. At the end of the Flying Fifteen Worlds in 2009 I made the decision to focus on finding someone to sail with and enter the Round the North Island in 2011. I have previously tried to organise a campaign, but failed. This time however, everything has worked out and in 3 weeks we will begin our adventure.

My “ship mate” and owner of the Farr 11.6 Coppelia we will be racing is Rob Croft. Rob has owned Coppelia for many years, and successfully competed in the 1999 RNI race and won the 1999 Auckland - Suva race. More recently he sailed Etchells and helmed in the Auckland keelboat scene, all the while restoring Coppelia.

Rob and I began sailing short handed together in 2009, completing the B& G Simrad winter series run by SSANZ. We won the series on line in the highly competitive Young 88 Division, for me the result confirmed the viability of a RNI campaign.

We have now raced close to 2000nm together two-handed, including two Round White Island races. However, the larger effort has been preparing Coppelia for the RNI. Rob’s previous crew was over 6ft tall, and when I started sailing on the boat many of the controls were out of my reach. When I sat on the side deck holding the tiller extension at full reach the boat would be bearing away as the tiller was above the centreline.

Rob has completed the lion’s share of the sailing system alterations, while I have taken the role of navigator and focussed my “boatwork” on ensuring we have the tools and information available to us for good decision making.

Over the past two years I have built the onboard electronic navigation system centred around Expedition Navigation and Yacht Racing Software.

Known on the boat as the “knowledge centre” Expedition provides us with far more than a chart plotter, it provides us with a one stop shop for all our geo-referenced data, charts, weather, tides and ocean currents. All on one screen, all for the area we are racing in. In addition, to the situational awareness provided on the screen, Expedition enables optimal routing to be completed on the fly, anytime on the boat, it seamlessly handles data downloads, and records our boat instruments for play back. It is like having Volvo navigator Nick White at the Nav. station.