VW had unfinished business from 2011,
having only got halfway around thanks to Tony being injured and some bad
weather (that was the toughest RNI ever), and we had a hard act to follow from 2014 of Blink winning the RNI, so
we set three simple goals…. Alive, Married, and…, well…, VW had ‘first’ and TW ‘on
the podium’.
So most of that worked out ...
Well before the start, we had the huge job
of getting Blink ready. Our regular Blink
team members helped out enormously to do the thousands of jobs that are
required to make sure that the boat can do the RNI effectively including going
around the island twice; once for the race and once to get Blink there and back. We are hugely grateful for all the support we
received, in particular from Gordy ‘MacGyver’ McDougall and Craig ‘Mr Wonderful’
Shearer who not only helped with all those little jobs but also delivered Blink
back from Auckland after the race. VW
and TW sailed 2-handed for the delivery to Auckland.
Leg 1 – Auckland to Mangonui 154nm, 2 capes
(Rodney, Brett)
After a conservative and subsequently
frustrating start in light air...
Late gybe .. boats in the way ...
Doing OK in light air with A2 here
... but decided to head back in because are breeze was forecast to come from shore ...
Might be a bad idea ... Bugger ...
After Tiri, the first leg was the nicest sailing we have ever done two handed. All downhill! Apart from the parking lot at Whangaparoa/Tiri and various other little frustrating light air bits, to sail in shorts and t-shirt (including overnight) for 158 miles with our big red 200m2 A2 was rather special. Not something us more southern folks get to experience!
Some catching up to do here again ...
Cape Rodney should have a bit more breeze from compression - let's go have a look.
We gybed our way up the coast, even led the fleet for a few hours after heading in to Cape Rodney for some compression of the light southerly.
Now that one worked !
Ran Tan eventually sneaks through a few hours later - in hindsight we were sailing a bit flat
Following Ran Tan past Brett. We pushed up slightly for some speed and stopped, RT kept going ...
And suddenly they were gone ... we were sailing too low and slow here, we'd missed the breeze that RT had stayed in
We needed to make a call of whether to go inside or outside the Hen and Chicks (outside, good) and Cavallis (outside, bad, allowed Miss Scarlet to catch us by going inside). After that we didn’t have quite enough breeze (TWS 12 kts) to plane deep and hold Miss Scarlett, so we ended up with a respectable third across the line, punctuated with a finish-line broach, the line felt a little tight for the last gybe-drop in 20 kts before the solid bits of the harbour met us.
Trying to hold onto Miss Scarlett in not enough wind for us
The hospitality of Monganui Cruising Club,
who had worked tirelessly to barely finish their clubrooms in time was
fantastic. They met us with helpers to
get us sorted out on the water, and they were also kind enough to also find
Blink a mooring at the last minute as we know that boats can drag their anchors
in the big tides and currents that run through the bay (Clear Vision got bumped
and damaged here with the tide change in 2011).
Our lovely friend Sue Ng travelled to Mangonui from Auckland to be our
shore team, bring up diesel needed for the next leg, and help us set up for the
big leg - slightly longer than a Sydney-Hobart - coming up.
Leg 2
Mangonui to Wellington 518nm, 5 capes (North Cape, Reinga, Maria van Diemen, Egmont, Terawhiti).
The Mangonui restart to Wellington was
always going to be the biggest endurance component of the race, so we wanted to
avoid unnecessary exertion in the early stages.
We went out early, and got set up early and quietly so as to not burn
too much energy, and with 8 minutes to the start, right on schedule, VW went to
hoist the jib. Catastrophe! - the
halyard pinged off, and got pulled up to near the top of our 18 meter
mast. We looked at each other and commented
that it was rather sub-optimal, bordering on quite imperfect. Or maybe some shorter words to that effect. Short of going back into shore to retrieve it
under easier conditions, or sailing the entire leg with no jib, there was no
option - TW to go up the mast to retrieve it, in a hurry. We couldn’t keep our
engine in gear during the 5 minute start sequence, making the control of the
boat more interesting than ideal. We had no option but to point the boat
downwind towards the beach, full mainsail only, with a bit much breeze
(mid-teens) to be an easy proposition with not a huge amount of runway. TW climbed frantically and Vesna drove and cranked
the winch like a demoness – in a few minutes TW had got to the end of the
halyard, untangled it from the upper forestay and brought it down.
Sailing away from the line, towards the beach, faster then preferred 2-handed with someone up the mast
The descent was rapid, with the race started
and other boats now 10 minutes ahead.
High fives were managed between gasps for breath and using what little
remained of arm muscles.
So then we’re right at the back of the
entire fleet. The FR0 came out, as we’d
planned as part of our organised and orderly pre-start, and with Vesna on the
wheel steeped in adrenaline, we counted off the boats that we passed, getting
to 23 with as we approached the first headland, Karikari peninsula.
We probably
should have put up the A3 at Karikari but restraint and maybe some sudden tiredness
won the day, so we kept the FR0, sailing a little high and slow until just
after North Cape, then the A3 was pretty good in the rough water even though
the angles weren’t as good as A2 or A6 angles might have been, so there were some extra gybes in low 20s wind.
As we rounded Capes Reinga and Maria van
Diemen, our next decision was whether to go inside or outside the Pandora
Shoals. VW has a visceral aversion to anything
containing words that even vaguely resemble ‘shoal’, and the Pandora Shoals are
especially unpopular, after one of the boats from the 2011 RNI with an
experienced SSANZ sailor ended up on the Shoals, and one of the crew was seriously
injured. The decision was fairly straightforward in VWs
mind, plus in light air and wanting to keep moving we couldn’t carry the A3 at
the angle to go inside.
Just past Pandora, we changed over to the
MHO and headed south down the west coast.
The next day, off Kaipara, we noticed some large and worrying
delamination in the MH0.
With a long
way to go and losing the sail looking likely, we took it down and went slowly
for a few hours of tough sweaty work while we peeled the sail from it’s furling
cable and got some repairs/patches done.
Slow here, no MH0 - it's downstairs getting fixed
The next day was spent in frustratingly light air, pleasant sailing but
not conditions to allow Blink to have an advantage. We got the expected westerly shift north of
Taranaki, tacked and headed back in, still in light breeze.
The wind picked up gradually, we changed
down to the FR0, and then at about 11pm the Taranaki Bight did it’s thing and
it got into the high 20s / low 30s. We had the FR0 and one reef, big waves, and
strong breeze to broad reach in. Very
much Blink conditions. For a few hours of very dark night, we scoffed chocolate
coated coffee beans and flew southeast, skimming over the waves, in doing up to
21 knots of boat speed, making up lots of miles on Miss Scarlet and Ran Tan who
by that point were well ahead.
Made up lots of ground after a lovely zoom across the Taranaki Bight
Just after
the hooning started, in the big waves and while Tony was driving, VW noticed
that the hydraulic oil had dropped to almost none in the glass sight tube. VW alerted Tony to this issue and Tony’s
response was “hmmm, this might get a little interesting”. Tony then described (ie yelled over the wind,
wave and boat noise) to Vesna what she needed to do…
TW to VW, shouting but not always being
heard above the ambient noise (gesticulating no help at all in darkness)…
“Go into the Drawer Of Many Things and find
a little spannery type tool – you’ll see it.
That’s the tool you will need to lock off the hydraulic rams. Then go under the galley sink and towards the
back, there are four bolty looking things, the valves, that you will need to
put the tool onto and turn through 90 degrees – upwards I think, but you’llonly
be able to turn them one way so whatever that it, it’ll be right. Make sure you turn all of them to 90 degrees
you will know when it locks. ” That locked
our keel hydraulics to mitigate how much fluid we lost, with none the keel
would flop around (very dangerous!), they could stay locked as there was no
need to gybe or change cant for a while.
VW’s response – a slightly
highly pitched “ok”.
With the keel locked, we only had another 4
litres of hydraulic fluid that we carry as spare and about 250 miles left to
sail to Wellington. We were safe for the
moment as it didn’t look like we needed to gybe until the morning, but there
was a significant adjustment to our strategy, we couldn’t really afford to cant
our keel... We would need to assess
whether we then centred the keel and locked it there, depending on how much of
the remaining fluid fell in the glass on our next cant.
In the morning (now daylight) it was time
to gybe and we decided to centre the keel as the wind conditions had dropped a
bit. This, and the strategic implications that came with it, was a significant disadvantage
- but there was no choice, we had to get home to Wellington and finish the leg.
While moving to the wheel somewhere between
Kapiti and the Brothers, VW slipped on a sheet and fell in the cockpit,
complaining that she had hurt her leg but mostly her shoulder was sore. A couple of neurofen and a few tissues and a
hug from TW later, she picked herself up and continued to drive, although quite
sore and tired.
Ran out of wind for a bit here too ... current taking us northwards
This is roughly where VW hurt her shoulder ...
Note Ran Tan's horrible course, being pushed about by the current in no wind
We were fortunate to be able to know the area around Terawhiti well with most of our offshore races being in this area and our timing was spot on for the tide change having pushed the boat as much as we could in the fickle winds. At 1.30pm we’d arrived in the right spot and the right time… the tide was at its peak in the right direction and we managed to hook into 6 knots of tide with 4 knots of our own boat speed = 10 knots over ground!. We could see both Ran Tan and Miss Scarlett only a couple of miles away and became rather enthusiastic to try and catch them, actually overtaking Miss Scarlett at one point near Karori light.
Doing the big catch up - local knowledge pays off
As we got to Sinclair Head, we were really close to the lead. Ran Tan and Miss Scarlett were heading southeast to stay in the light breeze, and just ahead of us was a new inshore breeze line, if we could get across 30m of (very) light patch we’d be in this with an excellent chance of first into the harbour. Little to lose, the 4th
place boat was a long way back, may as well throw the dice…
Decision time -- Take a chance of 1st vs a pretty definite 3rd ...? Yep ...
Not looking good at all
Bugger !
We lost that gamble, badly. Ended up getting stuck in a hole for a couple
of hours while the first two disappeared and finished. We tried everything we
could (short of what we really needed, canting the keel to leeward), with what
energy we had left. Eventually, just
before the tide changed and carried us in the wrong direction for a few hours,
we found a puff of breeze and got moving slowly to the harbour. On the way in we hoisted our A2 for a few miles,
but without keel cant we couldn’t go in the right direction so that didn’t last
long.
We ended up 3rd on line and 1st on PHRF for
Div One in our hometown. Given the
dubious start at Mangonui hours of going slow doing MH0 repairs, a hydraulic
leak and no canting after Taranaki, and Vesna being injured, a really great
result.
We were met at the dock by family and
friends including Dely, TWs mum. Our friends Dave and Anna
delivered hot pies and delivered beer and coke zeros, in ice.
The beers were almost as nice as the joy of plunging fiery sore hands into the
ice bag. It was great to finally be home. Suggestions were made to VW about X-Rays for
sore shoulders, but there was no way she was opening the prospect of missing
the rest of the race.
Gordie helped us out (again) – with a temporary
solution to the leaking hydraulic ram, involving a combination of minimising
loss around the seal, and carrying most of the western world’s hydraulic oil
supply. Still restricting, but much
less so than it was.
Leg 3
Wellington to Napier 205nm, 2 capes (Palliser, Kidnappers) and misery
Our ‘Legus Horribilus’; way too windy just
after the start, and then way too windless for all of the rest.
Starting with an A6 out of the harbour in 25 knots that exceeded 40 for just long enough to mess up the fleet, combined with tying the jib halyard over the lazy sheet, all added up to a couple of very nasty broaches and the A6 fabric melted onto the forestay. At one point the A6 was pumping the rig really hard - so the priority became getting the runner on before the mast fell off, rather than getting the boat upright, resulting in a very slow recovery in the harbour entrance and calls to the coast guard.
Stopped here, on our side ... doesn't look like it on the tracker
and slow while we sort out the (big) mess
We got up and sorted pretty fast after that, but then lacked the appetite to use the FR0 as we should have across Palliser Bay, meaning we got to Cape Palliser in the wrong place and ended up in the back of the fleet again.
Made up some ground slowly by here, but FR0 would have had us faster and further from the windless hole in the corner
Then we started doing better, and caught up, not far northeast of Palliser. By now it was very light wind again, 3 knots or so, and a bit choppy.
Back in the game here, thanks to the Post-Palliser-Park-up
Then Ran Tan (50 feet) overtook us on our port side and Celadon (52 feet) on starboard. We looked for weed on rudders/keel, couldn’t see any, and figured they were faster in the choppy water and light air than us since we were lighter and shorter.
Several hours later, at dawn, and with much of the fleet well ahead of us again in still very light wind, we saw the big bit of kelp on the starboard rudder that was the culprit.
Weed on rudder here, so we're much slower than we should be - but we didn't know, couldn't see it at night with torch and reflections from water surface, didn't find it until the morning
It was easy enough to get off, then we just stopped in our own private wind hole, for nearly six hours. It was heartbreaking watching more than half of the fleet, which we should have been near the front of, disappearing over the horizon.
After we got the weed off, then we were in the wrong place, and stopped
.. these 2 pics are a perfect demonstration of how bad our wind hole was ...
After that we worked really
hard, trying to catch the fleet and hoping there would be another opportunity
to get back into the race, but that didn’t happen, and last on handicap for
that leg was not a surprise.
Coming into the finish -- Blink at normal speed in some breeze at last, catching one more boat before the finish
To add
insult to injury, we had to wait out in the bay for the tide to come in at
Napier so we could get into the marina for a few hours. At least there was no wind and it wasn't cold while we
waited.
Speaking of Injury, VWs shoulder continued
to be very uncomfortable. Mention of XRs
was made again...
Leg 4, Napier – Auckland, 367nm, 3 capes (East Cape, Runaway, Colville)
The light air torture wasn’t quite over. The restart was delayed until there was at least some breeze, but it wasn’t exactly solid wind.
Wedgetail (purple) lucky to be not too disadvantaged by the trip back to the lift to sort out their prop
- rest of us going very slowly here ...
We were very slow to get our Code 0 working but eventually we did and eventually got out near Mahia where it was only 20-25+ knots wind speed but the sea state was pretty unpleasant.
We took an embarrassingly long time to work
out why we were slow in the rough weather, the hydraulic oil level hadn’t
changed much, but the pummeling and bouncing had pushed the keel back to centre
and we weren’t canted at all. Once we
worked that out … off we went.
We slipped through inside East Island since
the sea state had unexpectedly settled at East Cape.
The run across the Bay of Plenty was nice; fast
breeze 2-sail reaching in solid with boat speeds usually in the mid-teens.
From the Mercury Islands to the Colville
channel we parked again, it was really slow and frustrating all the way through
to Cape Colville.
So the relief when we
had enough wind to put up the A2 and move in a straight line towards the finish
line was significant.
We had enough
breeze for the rest of the way in. VWs shoulder was still a problem but we were
managing pretty well.
We had very nice greeting in Auckland, and amongst
all the folks who were there, a nice chap called Rob turned up… he turned out to be quite handy as he knew Blink
quite well, mostly because (a) he designed her and (b) he’d won the RNI on her last
time.
NB Back in Wellington, Vesna's shoulder X-Ray showed the (not just a crack!) clavicle fracture very nicely ...
