Richmond Summer Series 2011 Race 5: Long Night

Looking forward to keeping all crew on-board, we headed out on quite a blustery evening on the Waitemata Harbour, in the Richmond Wednesday night Summer Series.

The Crew

John (Captain)and Ian, Mark, and introducing Dave, who got a fairly hairy start to his crewing on-board Kerkira. Welcome Dave!

Course 4

With a healthy Norwesterly breeze we headed down the harbour to Resolution, down to Leading Light Buoy, Rough Rock, Orakei, Stanley Point and then home. Along with the wind advisory was quite a decent out-going tide - so coming back up the harbour was always going to be a slog.

The Start

After heading up under the Harbour Bridge to practise out tacking and getting the new crew familiar with working together, we headed down to the start and arrived on time. With an out-going tide and strong wind in the same direction, it was always going to be straight down the middle.

Progress

We stayed pretty close to the fleet down-wind and in the reaches, but struggled coming back up the harbour against the elements. Still, we felt we were doing a reasonable job of it, maximising the gusts and trying to stay out of the tide as mush as we could.

There was the 9:00PM cut-off looming, and we had the bit between our teeth to make sure we put points on the board for the night. Sadly... we must have been seconds over, as the result shows we were DNF. Not a wasted night however, its always good to be sailing!!!

The Result

DNF... well, it happens - maybe I need a decent up-wind sail...?? ;-)

Postscript: After beers, burgers and talk, Mark managed to break off the key to his bike lock and had to taxi home.