Two more sailing days ...

Last Wed night we had Ben Gladwell from Boating New Zealand magazine join us for a race as he wanted to review Blink, he'd also organised a chase boat with well-known local pro photographer Chris Coad.  Chris took some pics of the inside of the boat first, and then was in a chase boat for on-the-water pics.  Ben steered for almost all of the race, and we had a great time gybing down Evans Bay flying the A2.

Yesterday (Saturday) was the second race day of the Xmas series at RPNYC.  The forecast was 5 knots variable and the day was indeed glorious, still and hot in the morning, so we were quite comfy with only 6 people for harbour racing.  Then a sea breeze - which is pretty uncommon here - started up at 12-15 knots for the first race.  This was a short windward-leeward and I knew this wouldn't suit us well yet, we're still refining our furling technique and timing, and no decent chances to stretch our legs.  Add to that some minor nightmares, like a Div2 boat being right in our way where we wanted to start at the pin, and refusal of the A2 to unfurl quickly at top mark roundings (we got it sorted eventually, though, and learned a lot in the process), plus I horribly mis-estimated timing for both hoisting (underestimated) and furling (overestimated)... let's say our handicap would have improved and leave it at that.  We did, however, make a very good job of our general boat handling -- tacks, gybes, etc all pretty slick given how things were really quite busy on the short course.

Second race was a harbour course, more suited to us, but by this stage the breeze has started to get very light, and the whole Div 1 fleet were pretty much gybing through wide angles trying to keep speed on and all pretty close together.  We rounded the bottom mark and got the Code 0 hoisted, thinking that this would be just the thing... and then the breeze got up to 8 or so knots, then 10, then 12 ... so we took it down again.   Now using the light jib, we were gauging up on Ran Tan ahead of us  while the rest of the fleet had gone right.  they tacked away onto port near Somes island,  we decided to go a wee but further and got a 40° lift.  Not for long, but very very useful...  so we cleared Somes ahead of Ran Tan and kept our lead to the (shortened race) finish at Falcon Shoal.   Gunsmoke again.