The 40 knot southerly with 'very high sea' that delayed this year's CSC from Saturday to Sunday caused havoc with more than a few teams. We had planned to race with our usual inshore crew with pretty much everyone available. Available for Saturday, that was.
So we had a slightly unusual mix. Vesna and I were of course off for our Xmas cruise - the CSC has always been a delivery race and the week before Xmas in the sounds is brilliant because nobody is there. A couple of years ago before Christmas we were in a stunning outer Sounds bay in great weather, and didn't see another boat for 3 days. After Boxing Day things get more crowded - nothing like the Bay of Islands though - but it seems much busier, and less special as a result.
Mark H had been at a big stag party the night before (or was it the night before that - if so it must have been quite a party!) but dragged himself to the boat. Jason W was keen no matter when, Mark A was always going to be joining us regardless of details like day or weather conditions, and Matt Perry was a late addition when it looked like the wind was going to be big a couple of days out and he was looking for a ride. Preferably a big one.
As a direct result of the impending cruising holiday CV was in 'fat slapper' mode. We had on the boat the racing cray pot, the racing carpet, all of the racing squabs, and 3 weeks worth of racing (cruising) supplies. And we used the same albino carbon mainsail (close up it strongly resembles Dacron) famed from last year's CSC, on only it's 3rd outing.
With the forecast of a decent southerly we stacked as much of the heavy stuff in the port aft part of the boat as we could. It looked a little odd sitting at the dock, but we were looking forward to the righting moment in the blast from Thom's Rock to Tory Channel Entrance.
There are generally two approaches starting at RPNYC heading out of the harbour in a southerly: either start high with a kite and scoot down in the puffs across Oriental Bay, or start low and stay in more consistent wind while you 2-sail reach up to the white lady. Both of these work, but it's very unusual for both to work on the same day. Or even in the same 10 minutes. It all depends on what gusts emerge from Waitangi Park area. In a substantial break from our mindset over recent months, we went for the conservative option, low on the line. Which initially sucked badly since it failed to blow when we needed it. Eventually we got going, but not well - with all that weight down to leeward.
The Expedition / Predictwind combo had led us to believe that it was best to cross the harbour entrance and tack up the eastern side of the harbour entrance. That goes against conventional local wisdom which says stick to the other side out of the tide, but going across paid off handsomely in a previous race so we tried that again. Whether it was the heavier boat, the port side weight loading making starboard tack just horrible, the cruising mainsail, or the left side not paying, we were well below par leaving the harbour, back with the rest of the fleet. Meanwhile, Wedgetail worked on the beginnings of a horizon job, getting to Moaning Minnie while we were still trying to avoid both the incoming Interislander ferry and the rocky bits at the edges of the harbour entrance. Windspeed was only 20ish in the harbour so I suspect we were also underpowered with our heavy jib on the front.
We'd planned a headsail change to the jibtop as we rounded Minnie, and Matt and Mark H got this done pretty smoothly. We were still not getting away on the following fleet, but we gained almost a knot by throwing up the staysail before the wind went further forward.
Then we got around Thom's Rock and hoisted the big genny. This went imperfectly, with loads of flapping and an early fill that meant it took ages to hoist and of course we sailed horrible angles trying to make it behave. It wasn't really keen on setting well in the big waves of the south coast rips and it spent a bit of time flogging, seeming like it wanted to rip gear off that boat, especially the sheet winch. Not long after that it flogged and suddenly became very hard to trim, although the winch settled down incredibly well. It took all of us a few moments to realize that the sheet was wound into the block rather than being stuck on the clew. Down it came. A couple of us wondered if it was worth the trouble, we'd done okay 2-sail reaching in similar conditions in this race previously.
Oh yes, it was worth it. Once we got the big Q genny flying CV lit up. Winds were 22-27 knots, we saw 30 but only in a gust, occasionally far enough aft that I wondered about a spinnaker for a bit more power. But once we got moving and the Q working we had a great ride with long surfs, averaging circa 13 knots but getting over 17 a few times.
The only time we had trouble after that was not long after the hoist, while we were getting ourselves organised, Jason was making his way around the high side with Mark A steering when he fell on Mark. Since Mark was holding the tiller, he fell on that. And me as well, since I was the next lowest thing down. That made for a slightly messy round-up. Vesna offered advice that this was untidy and we shouldn't do that again. Mark A reassured her things were good back there in business class but she had made up her mind that the Q was as wild as a wild thing.
We had gone slightly too high early on, concerned that it might get too tight for the gennaker as we got towards the other side. As it turned out the Expedition proposal that we stay a little low going into Tory would have been better since we were having to work at getting low while keeping speed on. Wedgie was not as far ahead as we had expected (ie still visible) as we neared Tory. Vesna was on high alert for ferries, rocks and wildlife.
We kept the genny up all the way through Tory Channel Entrance, hoping that the southeasterly at the coast would carry us up the channel. No dice. Another significant difference between the Bay of Islands and the Sounds is that down here we have towering lumps of rock that add significantly to the scenic beauty and detract significantly from wind direction predictability. We did a rather hurried takedown and stupidly tried to tack and steer the boat according to wind direction. This was all while we spotted a panda whale - a big orca - cruising out of the channel.
After the first 500m of Tory channel it is often far more effective to point the boat where you want to go and tack the sails. But we took a while to remember this wee fact. In no wind at all, while deep in the process of remembering, which involved quite a lot of constructive but occasionally loud shouting, we realized that the line was back there and we'd crossed it already.
Then we just needed to get the mainsail down. We saw a lull coming (by now it was blowing 20 knots again) and decided to wait for it. In the central NZ sailing area tradition the lull was 30 knots, and the next lull after that was 42. Eventually though we got the main down and motored to Picton to raft up next to Wedgetail and heard that they had set a new CSC record by about 7 minutes. Well done the Wedgie crew.
We found out later: (1) that our blast across Cook Strait was good enough to make up for our suboptimal harbour exit, and we had come 1st on club offshore handicap, and 2nd on both IRC and PHRF*, and (2) we had water tanks that were 1/4 full because he who had been fixing the hot water system had forgotten to empty them again. Oops. Never mind.
* we'd initially been given 1st on all 3, the trifecta, but it turned out that Gucci had their time mis-reported by Maritime NZ, and pipped us on PHRF by 30 seconds and IRC by 5 minutes (wow!).
