Auckland–Tauranga

 

The Auckland to Tauranga race in the past few years has been associated with light winds, plenty of wind holes, then the wind filling in from the north east midday “ish” on Friday, allowing the small boats to catch up. This years race followed this trend. For this race both Rob and I were busy with other activities, meaning I attended the briefing the night before, while Rob tried to install our upgraded Autopilot, while steering Coppelia to Bayswater marina…. Not an easy task.

We started from Westhaven  tower in a strong out going tide, the photo above shows how little wind there was. We worked our way along the Kohi shore, in touch with Frenzy and Squealer, while keeping a firm eye on the other Farr 11.6 in the race “General Jackson”.

Things went pretty well until I took the helm close to Coromandel and drove us straight into a large area of no wind. Baaaaa !!! I did not take this well, maybe I am imagining it, but quiet often poor Rob is the one at the helm when we arrive in no breeze  and I am the one lucky enough to wriggle us out. As luck would have it after a bit of floundering round, we pulled out the code zero and lifted in a building easterly to round Channel Island just on dark.

The evening was uneventful, and we made good progress to to the Hole in the Wall, all the time fighting between the urge to go offshore to get more breeze, and a desire to not place our selves too far offshore for the decrease in wind in early hours of daylight. Too many times Tauranga locals have pushed in close to the coast, and taken advantage of the sea breeze that builds on the shore.

We positioned ourselves firmly in the middle of the course, which enabled us to take advantage of the easterly that formed offshore. Finally, we had picked a good path through the mine field of the Bay of Plenty local winds.

As we rumbled along first under code zero, then large kite, we looked inshore to see a group of yachts becalmed including Rikki, Force Eleven (with Neil onboard) and the Kaimai Express. We pushed hard to stay in front of these boats, but ended up finishing 11 minutes off 2nd placed Squealer and 10 minutes behind Rikki, to finish 7th on line, 2nd in division 2 on PHRF and 4th on 2-handed PHRF. I think the 4th maybe our worse result ever 2-handed, but really in 5 years of sailing together it is not bad!

For me the next adventure is a very different, next weekend is the Classic Yacht Association round Rangitoto race and on board cake building competition, followed mid April by two one-design regattas,  the festival of Flying Fiffteen (part II) at Whangeri (I am already scouring Expedition to work out where the sand bars are), and the first of the  Platu regattas for the year  at Gulf Harbour. Rob I believe is going to be doing some landlubbing!