• Join
    • Our Membership Options
    • Join the Club
    • Renew your Membership
    • Reciprocal Membership
  • Notice Board
    • Notices and Protests
    • Sailing Documents
    • Racing Programme
    • Entry and Results
  • Calendar
    • Calendar
    • Inshore Racing
    • Offshore Racing
    • Club events
    • Volunteer Rota
  • Sailing
    • Inshore
      • Port Nicholson Regatta
      • Wellington Harbour moorings
    • Offshore
      • Offshore Races
      • Offshore Race Records
      • Crossing Cook Strait
      • PredictWind Tracking
    • Race Management
      • Sailing Documents
      • Notices and Protests
      • Boat Register
  • Social
    • Coming events
      • Social calendar
    • Buy tickets
  • Clean Club
  • About us
    • Rules
      • Club Rules
      • RPNYC flag protocol
    • History
      • Learn about our past
      • Yarns
    • Contact
      • Our Crew
  • Venue Hire
  • Learn to Sail
  • Youth Scheme
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club
Login
  • Join
    • Our Membership Options
    • Join the Club
    • Renew your Membership
    • Reciprocal Membership
  • Notice Board
    • Notices and Protests
    • Sailing Documents
    • Racing Programme
    • Entry and Results
  • Calendar
    • Calendar
    • Inshore Racing
    • Offshore Racing
    • Club events
    • Volunteer Rota
  • Sailing
    • Inshore
      • Port Nicholson Regatta
      • Wellington Harbour moorings
    • Offshore
      • Offshore Races
      • Offshore Race Records
      • Crossing Cook Strait
      • PredictWind Tracking
    • Race Management
      • Sailing Documents
      • Notices and Protests
      • Boat Register
  • Social
    • Coming events
      • Social calendar
    • Buy tickets
  • Clean Club
  • About us
    • Rules
      • Club Rules
      • RPNYC flag protocol
    • History
      • Learn about our past
      • Yarns
    • Contact
      • Our Crew
  • Venue Hire
  • Learn to Sail
  • Youth Scheme
Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club
Club

A truly windy Wellington welcome

By Gavin Pascoe1 March 2020Updated:4 March 2020No Comments3 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Nikki and Deb settle in for a long night on Friday

The Rear Commodore writes…

As I write this it is 3:50am on Saturday morning and there’s a howling northerly blowing. All the 2020 Round North Island boats that are finishing this evening are having a truly Windy Wellington welcome.

Since midnight went down we have had five boats finish – however we all agree it has felt like 20! Nearly every boat has had the snot smacked out of them along the south coast and as they tacked up through the harbour entrance. We have also had ropes wrapped round a rudder, sails shredded, engines dying and emergency navigation lights washed overboard.

A race like this takes the usual army of people. We have roughly five or so people on each watch – for about 6-8 hours – to ensure that we have enough people to man the start box and run the RIB

When the RIB crew goes to work, it has at least three people on board; one to drive, one to jump onto the boat coming in to give them a hand and one on backup just in case a second boat is imminent, which has happened A LOT this evening.

Wardroom filling up on Friday

To add to the fun, there is a whole lot of stair climbing involved in getting the Welcome Packs ready to be delivered.  The toasties and beers are in the chiller down in the wardroom and the toastie machine is up in the office to ensure we don’t burn the place down. The step-count is through the roof – 30,000 to date! For the record – toastie making is a great job, so if you ever want to work on your calf definition then come help out with a RNI!

All this may sound hard, harsh and a royal pain in the tushie (excuse the royal pun), but in actual fact when you go meet the crews and welcome them to Wellington with hot toasties and cold beer (and even a hug when needed) you see the smiles on their faces which makes it all worth it. The steps, the lack of sleep, and the logistics involved in organising a stopover pales in comparison to the countless hours that the crews have put in just to get here. Make the time to come down to the club to meet these amazing people and listen to their stories as they are pretty epic!

While I have your attention I also need to thank all those members of our that have given their time to help run this event!! I don’t want to miss out anyone – but I really have to give a massive shout out and say an even bigger thank you to Geoff Herd aka Herdy. All the hours of work you have put in makes me look SO much better than I actually am (but I’m going to take it for sure.)

We have Blink, Satellite Spy and The Guarantee representing Port Nic and Am Meer from over at Lowry Bay, so you could even come and see them all off at the dock when they leave. You can check out the SSANZ website for when this will be.

Sunday morning dawns clear. Photo by volunteer Janine Small
FIrst arrivals on Friday

Related Posts

July Events

Seaweed? Fall in love! :)

Get amongst it – Club150 Monthly Raffle 🎟️

Comments are closed.

Key links
RPNYC Season Entry and Results

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our calendar
Buy RPNYC Swag

We’ve collaborated with Embroidme to offer a range of RPNYC clothing and other cool kit.

Visit the Store

FAQ

Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter
Subscribe to our calendar
Upcoming events
Jul 11
5:00 pm - 10:00 pm

🍻 Bar open from 5pm

Wardroom
Jul 11
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Rum Tasting

Jul 12
9:55 am - 3:00 pm

Winter 2-Handed Series

RPNYC Start Line
Jul 13
11:55 am - 3:30 pm

Winter Series

RPNYC Start Line
Jul 18
5:00 pm - 10:00 pm

🍻 Bar open from 5pm

Wardroom
Jul 18
6:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Airship Quiz Night

Jul 19
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Seaweed – a love story documentary and talk

Wardroom
Jul 25
5:00 pm - 10:00 pm

🍻 Bar open from 5pm

Wardroom
View Calendar
Weather and Tides
  • MetService Marine Forecast
  • CentrePort Port Weather
  • Port Marlborough Weather
  • Windfinder
  • Windy
  • Beacon Hill Webcams
  • Tory Channel Webcams
  • Tide Predictions
  • Tidal Stream Predictions - Tory Channel
Copyright © 2017-2022 Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Subscribe to our calendar
  • iOS / iPhone / iPad
  • Android
  • Outlook
    1. Launch the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad.
    2. Tap Accounts & Passwords.
    3. Under the Accounts section, tap Add Account.
    4. Tap Other.
    5. Under Calendars, tap Add Subscribed Calendar.
    6. Type “https://rpnyc.org.nz/calendarfeed” in the Server field (to paste in a copied link, tap and hold the field and select Paste).
    7. Tap Next.
    8. Use the Description field to give the calendar an easily recognizable name.
    9. Tap Save.

    1. Go to google calendar on the web – http://calendar.google.com
    2. Log in
    3. Click the 3 dots next to add calendar and go to by url
    4. Enter: https://rpnyc.org.nz/calendarfeed
    5. To view on web make sure it is selected to show on the left hand menu.
    6. To view on phone, go to calendar app, then settings and select the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club calendar to sync.

    1. Right click on ‘My calendars’ (or any other calendar group) in the calendars view.
    2. Click ‘Add calendar’ and then ‘From internet’
    3. Type “https://rpnyc.org.nz/calendarfeed” into the location box
    4. Click ‘OK’
    5. Click ‘Yes’

Subscribe to our newsletters

Subscribe to our mailing lists

* indicates required




Sign In or Register

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below.

Lost password?