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Saturday, December 1, 2018

01 Apr 2018 - Fire the start gun

After hoisting the main I sat on my mooring until about 30 min pre start. The start is the harbour entrance wall so you need to sail around inside the port and gybe/tack back and forth until the start. With an inner Solent forestay attached for offshore work, tacking the headsail means I need to furl the genoa and in a confined space with boats every where plus ship/tug movement, the lesson learned was drop the mooring when 30min from start, motor sail around with main and only in last 10min shut her down and crack on. Skippers can elect to have some helpers on board to set sails and get the boat on song before the extras get taken off about 15 min before the start.

A conservative start is very important for old guys like me on tight budgets. One wrong move in confined spaces with maybe not-so-cautious skipper and the dream is over before it began.....4 years wasted.

As I did in 2014, I started at the back of the fleet and gathered pace as the gun sounded. We're off and I was the last out of the gate.
With sheets cracked, we raced north along the beach so the crowd could see our spectacular, super fit, highly tuned sporting physiques and up to the first starboard mark whose purpose was to identify the reef that sticks its neck out from the beach and across the rhumbline. I sailed close to the rhumbline and close enough to the Coast Guard rescue boat that I could shakehands....but instead I offered my thanks for their support. The remainder of the fleet headed a bit further offshore. By the time we arrived at the port hand turning mark letting us loose toward Australia, I had regained some ground and hardened up on the wind to start the chase.

Rogue Wave does windward very well and it wasn't long before I began hauling up and over the top of Robbery and then focused on Am Meer  just off my starboard bow and Ocean Gem off my port bow and about a half a mile ahead. Robbery fell off below my starboard quarter into my wake and eventually off my visual horizon by nightfall.

When in NZ people asked me how far offshore do you start to see Mt Egmont and I could only speculate. So for all those who asked, at dusk and 34 NM out, I could see Mt Egmont lower section whilst the top of the volcano was covered in cloud.



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