The Race - Part 2

My race was really between two boats; Am Meer and Robbery since we were the only ones in the 36-38ft bracket.  Unless your shorter waterline boat planes/surfs/foils, every sailor knows for speed, there is no substitution for waterline length and sail area and light displacement. So the 45-55 footers had their race and we had ours. Fortunately Am Meer was also racing IRC and so was Ocean Gem so at least I had that working for me!

By 02 Apr  around 1000h we were doing 'circle work' as the wind hole swallowed the old Rogue. The race forecast indicated it was to be a light air, following breeze kind of race. That's certainly not in my favour as my IRC certificate limits my sail choice to one roller reefing genoa at 132% and the main and storm jib for upwind work, whilst for downwind I had 1 x Assy 1.5oz All Purpose Spinnaker (APS) and 1 x Sym Spinnaker 0.75oz.
109NM daily run....frustrating.

I spent a lot of time hand steering (read tiring) to keep the old girl moving and at times flew the APS in 5 knots only to have the fluky wind shift 10 degrees and collapse the rock show. When the breeze completely dropped out I was left with a sloppy see and slatting sails. The constant slatting broke two battens and two sail slugs, so down with the main and I spent the next 2 hours sewing slugs and replacing battens. Still no breeze so the main remained resting on the boom to minimse damage to the sail and hardware. Around 2000h the breeze began to fill in and we were back in the race.

By 03 Apr my speed ranged between 3-5 knots and at around 0300h I was on the latitude of Auckland, about 25NM behind my Predict Wind plot so polars were adjusted for the next download. 70NM daily run......dismal.

By 04 Apr speed had increased and at times we hit 7-8 knts as our course shaped NNW. Had a few rainsqualls during which the wind would blow from any direction. The lighter or more unpredictable the breeze, the more effort required to keep the boat moving in the right direction and the impact is very little downtime for rest.
100NM daily run......compared to yesterday ....better.