Friday 21st and 22nd was the Gallagher Insurance RPNYC regatta, keenly anticipated especially with the Wellington Classic event.
We entered Annie and with advice from Mike and Katie got our first PHRF certificate. Annie is a 40 ft (12m) Bavaria 38 cruiser – whom I live on board. Racing Annie has been a big thing. Throwing a cruising boat and your home around a race course can seem precarious, and there is extra caution that inevitably must be taken. However I am supported by a fantastic and growing team of girls and some great people that I have met over the years through the RPNYC.
Annie needs a reasonable wind to move, and with a smaller than optimal furling headsail she doesn’t point well into the wind in light airs. We were okay on the first day, even managing a third on handicap for one harbour class race when the wind picked up. But it was with some trepidation to see that across all forecasts for Saturday’s Classic race it was panning out to be a very light and variable wind day. NE – SW – NW, single digits for knots and inevitably times that Annie would be becalmed. A last place likely. There is a certain amount of resilience that must be built in these situations. Being at the bottom of the table is fraught with vulnerability to harsh critique and vulnerability to disappointment, both from myself and the crew. It takes me courage to go out.
Nevertheless, over time I have learnt to manage these situations by managing crew expectations, planning ahead, and drawing advice from people I know and trust. Gordy had set me up with some spinnakers some months earlier and spent an afternoon on the boat showing me the basics but it was only the week before the regatta that the crew and I had a day trialling putting up the smaller spinnaker. I was not intending to use either for the regatta. Nevertheless at his encouragement, together with some invaluable and encouraging discussion with Marg (who has been a bow girl) and Bob McVeagh about spinnaker use, I put the spinnakers onboard and left the lines rigged.
I thought about weight. I had been working on dropping the fuel to a measly 80 litres! and although I don’t have a gauge on my water tanks I was fairly sure they were low. At the last minute I took off my liferaft, something I have never done before. The next thing was to think about the start. Would we get over the line within the 4 minute cut off time? An earlier race that day had left us sitting in the water for half an hour just shy of the upwind mark so I was wary.
My strategy was to stay reasonably close to the start line, ever so slowly sailing across on a starboard tack. That was working, All the boats coming back on a port tack were parting around us like the Red Sea. At the start signal we managed to turn and drift over the line making it over in 2.5 minutes with quite a few boats behind us. We were elated! First hurdle down.
Slowly most of the other boats moved on leaving ourselves and our friends Bruce and co on Sea Beagle, another Bavaria. Then we were alone not moving in the middle of Wellington Harbour. My mind turned to the spinnakers, no yacht or ship traffic around, a clear run. The lightest of wind. Perhaps Gordy was right and we could give the large spinnaker a go. The choices were that or a DNF.
With Sharon helming and Jess and Katie on the lines in the cockpit, Caroline, Linnea (who has had spinnaker experience), and myself went to the bow, attached the pole and the lines and flew the large spinnaker – this beautiful huge red and white sail. Almost instantly we started moving and the boat speed picked up from nothing to 2-3 knots. A few things not quite right including ourselves not extending the telescopic pole to the longest setting for the largest spinnaker but we were moving. Feeling the lightness of the boat on the helm was amazing! We carried on our downwind run a bit too long before we took the spinnaker down and rounded the mark.
By this time Sea Beagle had passed us and was way ahead with their gennaker flying. This was inspirational. Up went our spinnaker again, and we discovered by moving the pole forward so it was just shy of the furling headsail and stay (so as to not put pressure on it) we could use it like a gennaker. A glitch with not thinking about trimming in the downhaul at the same time meant the pole lifted and the pole slid back to the shorter setting. Oh well, we still we were moving! Amazing ! It was then we had to bite the bullet and take the spinnaker down again as we headed back to the upwind mark. It was excruciatingly slow. A quick radio call revealed we had until 1743 hrs to finish but at 1 knot of boat speed things were looking unlikely. Sea Beagle disappeared into the distance and we were alone again, at least half an hour behind.
Slowly we got to the mark at Korokoro. It struck me that no one was around to witness this momentous occasion so I took a photo as we were about to round the mark. We had approximately 45 minutes to get back. Then there was some wind, complicated by the Interislander ferry turning up. A lot of watching by all and judging distance and speed left me reasonably confident we could hold our sailing course and avoid them without using the motor. I reflected how far we had come from some years earlier when I turned the motor on the instant I saw a ferry.
We were making reasonable progress as we headed on a beam reach towards Lambton Harbour but it was touch and go. Once we passed the White Lady our lovely 10 knot wind dropped to less than 5 knots again. The finish boat was tantalisingly close but the clock was ticking. We were trying everything to get to the line. The fickle wind was meaning we were trimming the sails constantly between that appropriate for a beam reach and a close haul with little effect on speed. However I could feel the boat picking up speed with more crew sitting on the leeward side and I realised the gain in speed of this was greater than the gain of having those left in the cockpit trimming the sails, so we locked the sails in a close reach position and all moved to the leeward side, including myself, standing with one hand on the steering wheel. The boat picked up speed and we ever so slowly reached the line.
We made it over with 24 seconds to spare. Maybe taking the liferaft off helped.
What a race and a crew ! We were elated. Anyone would have thought that we had won the cup when we were at least 40 minutes behind the last boat! We made it to the club and so many people were so encouraging. Dave Roberts, who has always been supportive, handed us his bottle of rum which they had won for their amazing
2nd place. Very generous and very humbling.
A huge thank you to the race committee, to Carolyn as the Rear Commodore, and to all the volunteers particularly those on the race boat who waited to the last minute! A special thank you to John and Linda Parrish for their fabulous race management and also for their encouragement to ourselves. So appreciated!
Robyn Harris, skipper of Annie