A couple of stories from Blink's RNI

Leg 4, Napier to Auckland, dawn of Day 2.  In the early light we can see East Island off our port bow.  We’ve ended up a little high in the SE wind, using our FR0 along the east coast has given us a decent lead on the other 40s, but has also ended up high, heading NNE, away from the Mercury Islands, our next mark, and therefore the finish.   We know we have to head north-ish, hopefully NNW, to get offshore and stay in better pressure before gybing west.  It’s supposed to be mid-to-upper 20s for most of the day so the A4 is the obvious choice.  The longer we delay putting it up the more ground we lose on anyone who might duck inside us and shorten their course.  So Craig volunteers for a salty firehosing on the pointy end as he plugs it in, then we hoist and we’re off.  The combination of the good pressure and the big rolling swell lights Blink up.  We rarely drop below 17 knots of boat speed and spend minutes at a time in the low 20s, surfing down and across the swell, sometimes long rides on the crest of a big wave, seeming to rip along many metres above the whole ocean.  About half of the time we can leapfrog to the next swell in front, and we only slow down when we hit a steep back of a big wave.  It’s fast, brilliant, exhilarating, and we know that few boats in the fleet can do this quite like Blink can.  But there’s a problem.

It’s full-on.  We’re both completely committed to steering and trimming, and can’t leave what we’re doing or we’ll end up broaching.   Well actually we did have a few round-ups, so probably more accurate to say we’d be broaching much more often if we relaxed.  We’re okay with this because the speed is brilliant, and the broaches are happening only if we slow down, when the waves can spin us, so we know the faster the better.  The problem is neither of us have slept at all.  Nor have we had a drink, peed, eaten, adapted what we are wearing to the rapidly warming day, put on sunburn cream or anything else apart from constantly manning the wheel or a winch.  We do this for several hours and get well north of East Cape before facing a gybe, which we carefully time for a combination of a lull and high speed down a wave, and we get very close to avoiding a round-up.  And then we’re off on a westerly course, just as fast and intense as before.  We see a boat on our windward beam, a couple of miles north, but we can’t identify them, firstly because our boat computer has a problem (we can’t get instrument data including AIS to show, and we also can’t get the Yellowbrick tracking data), and secondary because we can’t leave what we’re doing.  But given that over the next hour we’re leaving them behind and they are falling down below our line, we assume they’re not one of our competitors.  We later find out it was a TP52 in our fleet.  We ended up second on line in this leg, beatig several 50+ foot boats, the only boat in front of us was Wired, a canting keel 52.

Up to that leg, in the mostly upwind and light air of the 2020 race, Blink didn’t really get a chance to shine.  Upwind we’re pretty good for a 12m boat; cracked off a few degrees we’re fast, but she’s extraordinary with the wind near or behind the beam.  There hadn’t been much of that so far.  Added to that our (very logical at the time but in retrospect a move of blatant idiocy) long tack in towards Raglan in leg 1 that cost us at least 5 hours, we weren’t likely to do that well overall.  At least we got to drop and repair our MH0 while we were drifting in circles.  With a couple of small time penalties from protests added to our elapsed time, in my totally unbiased opinion we did brilliantly to come 6th out of 38 boats on PHRF overall.  But for that Raglan move … 

Thirty-six hours after the ill-fated Raglan venture, still in leg 2 past Taranaki, we’re in catch-up mode.  Mr Kite, who we probably should have been leading into Wellinton, was long gone, no chance of catching her.  Clockwork were with us, and Anarchy well ahead.  There’s still some self-respect to be recovered though, if we could beat these two into Wellington.  We’re playing our strong suit for the first time in the race, the previously light NW was building to the upper teens, we had an A2, J2, and full main up, and starting to hustle.  A quick look at the forecast and we knew how just it would play out in the strait.  Nowcasting had 30 knots at the Brothers weather station.  So, at least 2 hours before we needed it, Craig and I made a plan - based on local knowledge, forecasts, nowcasting, and knowing Blink and her sail wardrobe well.  Reef the J2 soon while it’s easy, drop the A2 just north of the Brothers, change to A6 for crossing the strait, drop for the FR0 for terawhiti to Karori or maybe Thom’s.  Looking back on it now, this was a perfect plan, it would have worked brilliantly.  So we were uncommonly well prepared, well in advance, and knew exactly what to do.  It think our undoing came from the well-in-advance part.  

What actually happened, despite that careful plan, went like this. We were mowing Anarchy down, and nearly past them by the Brothers.  This was in low 20s wind, still full main, J2.5, A2.  So we kept going to the Brothers, because the strong NW-SE tide would help, where it was still reading 30 from the Brothers weather station.  Perhaps several knots of tide would lessen the apparent wind to the mid-20s too?  As we approached, it didn’t look windy on our line between Koamaru and the Brothers.  So we kept going.  Until we were slammed over in the fastest broach I can remember, keel way up in the air and all the stuff that should have been up in the air now getting wet.  After getting upright again, waaaay overpowered, dropping an A2 in 30+ knots 2-handed with a full main up.  What could go wrong?  Oh yes, that’s right.  Awash rock. Downwind and down current. Not very far away at all with the speed we’re doing while sailing deep to drop the kite.  

Default positions, me steering, Craig forward for the drop.  Craig was again sensational at handling the sail and drop, and despite a bit of a struggle, the A2 ended up all inside the boat.   Gybed asap to clear the rocky lump, now we’re heading towards Wellington again, slightly flustered and a lot sweaty and bit tired.  Anarchy as been sailing the rhumb line and made a gain while we were struggling.  To my surprise Craig looked back at me and despite the rough water and 30 knots, said that if we wanted to catch them, which we did, the best option was the A6.  Also to my surprise I agreed.  So up it went, as fast as two tired people can get lines cleared and ready, and heavy sails brought on deck and hoisted in rough water and lots of wind. 

The angle was a little tight, but that ride will sit happily in my memory alongside the first half of 2015’s Wellington-Akaroa leg, a great antidote to Covid-related house arrest.  The front half of the boat consistently out of the water, like a giant child was pulling us through the water as a toy by the end of our bowsprit.  Once or twice serious amounts of green water over us as we ran into waves at boat speeds somewhere in the 20s.  Asking Craig if he could get one of the other crew to please put a reef in (we hadn’t quite got around to that).  Craig asking me if I had any idea how we were going to get it down.  Noting that we’d again passed Anarchy, but now we were quite low and we’d better get the A6 down if we wanted to get back up.  So down it came, and 2-sail reaching with the long overdue reef, from there. We did cross the line before them.  

After all of that, the most frightening moment of the whole race for me was when we thought Anarchy were about to sail straight over Thom’s rock, they didn't hear our radio calls on Ch16 over the wind-factory noise.  We both thought they were going to hit it, but apparently they were watching it closely on their plotter. They must have been much closer to it than we’ve ever been. 

Apart from some small issues, the months we put into personal and boat prep paid off.  We didn’t have a J4 because it was accidentally left in the loft and we couldn’t put it on during the race, we missed that dearly at Cape Reinga and after Cape Palliser.  We couldn’t get the Yellowbrick data downloads to work on Expedition so we were unable to track the fleet for the entire race, a significant tactical disadvantage that might have prevented the Raglan episode.  The previously immutable dictum that you can't anchor a race boat at Mangonui without getting damaged was again true - the strong currents and variable wind wrapped anchor chain around the bulb and tore some fairing off the fin (of minor hydrodynamic importance only).  Slopping around in little wind and the MH0 up resulted in spreader holes in the sail.  Otherwise Blink could handle everything we threw at her, with no damage or failures.  

Thanks to the best road crew ever, Vesna (happiness, provisioning, dispute resolution)  and Gordie (technical, rigging, boat cleanup, fuel, anchoring and more) who travelled the country in our car and met us at every stopover.  Sorry about the sleep deprivation from the 30-minute updates, but deepest apologies would be reserved for the times you needed to yell at the YellowBrick tracker screen because we were going somewhere daft.  

Thank you Craig for your huge commitment of time and effort, and joining me on this adventure.  You’re a great salior, excellent company, and I think we made a team with Blink that could so easily have taken a slice of podium or even the top spot. 

There'll be more stories from Blink's 2020 RNI, but I think these are probably best shared over a glass of something once the eerie isolation month is over.  Stay well in your bubbles, all.

Leg 2 done!

After an epic sail of more than 600 miles, Blink finished a respectable 5th on line.  A great battle with Anarchy along the south coast and into the harbour was had beating them by a few minutes.  Tony and Craig reported a fantastic sail near the Brothers with the A6 doing speeds in the early 20s.  This was short lived and the more traditional two sail smacking into Wellington took its place.

The decision to go inland near Raglan didn't pay off but seemed right at the time according to weather models on Expedition.  Then fighting their way out of the hole to catch up to the rest of the fleet became a priority.  Running a dry boat for racing meant that no beer was on board and ice creams at Raglan were just out of reach.  Had a beer been opened, no doubt the winds would have started to increase.

The shore crew met two tired boys on the dock with beers and pies. A great finish by Tony and Craig and with a few days of relaxing, the next leg to Napier is likely to start midday Monday.

Addicted to Yellow Brick!

With half hourly updates, the tracker is totally addictive!  There are loads of family and friends sending in their best wishes for Blink who is currently in the Sounds heading home.  I think you get more rest on the boat than you do being a spectator.

From Glen (Craig's sister):

"We have all been watching the boys comparing notes amongst ourselves.  They are tenacious".  "Hopefully they can play their home advantage on this inbound leg".

Blink is a few hours away now approaching the Brothers Islands.  The Blink shore crew, family and friends will be here to greet you Tony and Craig for beers, hot food and great big hugs!

Go Blink!

Happy Birthday Tony!

From all the crew at Capital Eye Specialists and Resolve. Looks like everything's under control back at the surgery Tony.

Mangonui to Wellington - Update

A great clean start for Blink.  The conditions in Mangonui were superb - A2 up from the start and carried out of Doubtless Bay around the corner.  At the sched last night, Blink reported that all was well and a tough sail change at Reinga.  Not a surprise as the Shaw Crew drive to Cape Reinga and there was quite a bit of breeze up at the top.  Not to mention the two oceans meeting and the tidal/wave action that brings.  There are numerous hazards at the top including some significant reefy rocky bits.  As the rock monitor and let's not hitting anything monitor ;-) on the boat, just looking at it made me worried.  Much better to be on the boat and see the maps of such things not standing on a hill thinking about them.

Shaw Crew - Gordie and I, had a great day yesterday driving to the top.  Had a stop in Kaitaia and Houhora for a late lunch (fish and chips at the cafe in Houhora rivals Mangonui by the way).    We were too early to wave at the fleet as they rounded the top around 7pm last night while we were having fish and chips for the second time in Monganui.

Some pics of the start from the hill top and our adventures.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY!

Mangonui Done! Leg 2 - Wellington

After a great sail using mostly the MHO and A3, Blink finished approximately at 7am.  An infarction on the finish line didn't detract from an excellent effort by Tony and Craig competing against some very fast 40 and 50 footers.  Provisional Results: 2nd on PHRF and 4th on Line for Div 1 and 6th on PHRF overall.  Great effort Tony and Craig!
Results here: https://www.ssanz.co.nz/results/

With a good night's sleep, the epic Mangonui to Wellington leg starts at 12pm today.  Briefing at 9am. Over breakfast, there was loads of discussion about strategy, sail wardrobe and the most optimal run.  Provisions are done with options depending on what the conditions are. Speaking of breakfast, today it was birthday cake.  Tomorrow (25th) is Tony's birthday.  There will be more on the boat as Craig said he won't be baking; he will be too busy naviguessing, sleeping, eating, driving or trimming.  Tony said he will be having the day off.

Thank you to the Mangonui Cruising Club for your superb hospitality. In particular, Roger who drove the rib to and from all the boats yesterday - you are a legend.  We remember you fondly from the last RNI too.   Also to Pete Geary for his tirelessly enthusiastic and kind support of the RNI 2020 and all our friends and family around New Zealand and overseas watching the race.

Will keep you posted.

And they are off!

As Shaw Crew we had the privilege of being on Steve and Vanessa Ashley's launch alongside the Krakatoa support crew.  With more than 40 days of no rain in Auckland, today's start was certainly not a dry one.  A great start to the RNI with 38 boats making their way to Mangonui for fish and chips.

Speaking with Tony and Craig just before leaving the dock indicated that they were ready for a seriously good and enjoyable battle.  There was much discussion in our household this morning before the start of the race of what wardrobe (apart from umbrellas) might be needed for the start line.  A3? MHO? J2?  Sail chosen was the MHO which proved to be a good choice to make it around North Head and to clear Rangitoto light.

Report from Tony and Craig for their SSANZ schedule is that all is well on board, MHO doing all the work and time for some dinner.

More  to be updated when the Shaw crew get to Mangoinui base.

RNI 2020 - Ready

After a great few days of last minute tweaks in Auckland, Blink is ready for the RNI.  Tony and Craig have been preparing for this day for more than 12 months; physically, mentally and enthusiastically.  Such a great honour to sail in the 43rd anniversary of one of the toughest yacht races in New Zealand with Sir Peter Blake as one of the founding fathers of the race.    This year there are 38 competing boats with an excellent mix in each of the divisions.   First division has a number of 50 and 40 footers.  Blink are defending overall champions for the last two Round North Island races.


Tony has sailed in two of the overall line honours; with Rob Shaw in 2014 and with Vesna in 2017.  No pressure Craig!

Our friends and colleagues from Wellington and Waikawa are Satellite Spy, Arbitare, The Guarantee, Distraction and Am Meer.  It is a huge effort to bring the boat to Auckland and be ready to start.  They effectively do the race twice.   Go hard everyone, stay safe and see you all for fish and chips Mangonui.

Follow Blink's progress here and also on the SSANZ website https://www.ssanz.co.nz.

More 1s

Wellington to Lyttleton 2018 started at 6pm on Easter Thursday, and we knew before we started that the light wind in the first 12 hours would take away any chance of a race record time.  We knew also that we'd have trouble getting away from our competitors in the light breeze and that we'd spend quite some time being frustrated and drifting backwards.  Cook Strait - it's never like this ...

And so it was.  At dawn on Good Friday things were not good for us.  Josh Hayter's well sailed Young 11 Clear Vision was threatening to get further south than us as we headed inland.  The Thompson 38 Codebreaker team had stuck with us all night, sometimes ahead, making great use of their Code 0 and narrow waterline, also heading south as we sailed at almost 90° to the rhumb line.    With nearly half of the race over and with the rest of the fleet's handicaps significantly lower than Blink's, we figured we'd be well off the podium.  

Then the new NE, compressed by the Kaikoura ranges - the reason we'd suffered to head inshore - started.  Up went the A2 for one of the most pleasant day's sailing for a long time.  

Heading in towards Clarence River Mouth

Flat water, TWS 12 built slowly to 15 and then to 20 knots throughout a lovely sunny afternoon.  We gybed out when we were running out of water, then back in again as the breeze softened away from the land, almost to Kaikoura, then back out again to ride a gradual lift down the Canterbury coastline.

This breeze steadily built through the day, and it seemed the other boats that had stayed further out were missing out, by late afternoon we'd put ~50 miles on the rest of the fleet.  

Sunset in Pegasus Bay

Sunset with the A2 still up

Sun down...

... moon up ... full, of course, it's Easter.

The wind built further, soon just after sunset we had a hectic moonlight ride in high 20s to low 30s windspeed with the A2 and a full main still up.  Not really wise, but fast as long we kept the boat upright, which we mostly did.  

We deduced eventually that was definitely too much sail and we changed to the A4 and put a reef in.  Same 18-23ish boat speeds, and much more sensible for uprightness.   We had to gybe in the dark and, given that we expected to do badly on handicap results so we didn't need to push it toooo hard, decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valour (cowardice might have been the better part of discretion too?).  

So we dropped the A4, gybed, and hoisted the A6.  Now slightly underpowered but well in control which was just as well because we were converging on the harbour entrance with a container ship.  Frustratingly ... we'd been watching the lack of change in compass bearing for a long time since we were both doing 18ish knots.  We decided to drop our kite - maybe temporarily - to let them go ahead, slowing down to about 12 knots. The ship then also slowed to take on the harbour pilot.  Still on a collision course :-( ... So we sailed slowly, badly, deep downwind with only a jib up at the front for a few miles while we got into the harbour.  Eventually we ducked behind the ship, unfurled a FR0, and sped up a bit.  But it was the wrong sail so we tried to get the A4 back up but this was slow to organise and we ended up just going slow over the line.  No matter we thought, we're not really in the running for the prizes anyway, so what if we lost maybe 20 minutes or so in the harbour entering debacle.

But, as it turned out, the combination of our heading inshore to pick up that breeze early in the day, and the wind dropping as the rest of the fleet got to the harbour entrance, meant we ended up winning on handicap by healthy margins, ~35 minutes on Port Nich Handicap and nearly an hour on PHRF.  [Handicapping committee: please note that result is clearly an outlier due to fickle weather conditions  :-)  !]

Team: Gordie, Craig, Jason, Alex, Cobbie, Fletch, TW.  Sadly no VW as knee still not quite ready.  

Catherine Cove 2018 - a set of 1s

Awesome race in a solid southerly
1st on Line, and on PHRF and RPNYC handicaps.  And another race record.

Video below ... pretty much says it all ... Welcome to the team Matt and thanks to Robin for joining us again

No 2017 S2H for Blink

Sadly we've had our entry to the S2H denied.
After months of work and preparation including 1800+ lines of spreadsheet items to tick off, using most of our spare time for the last couple of months, the bit that got us stuck was the clause of:

 - an ORCi stability index of 115 for the configuration in which the boat proposes to race; or
 - International Standard ISO12217-2 Design Category A except that the STIX Number shall be increased to a minimum of 35.

We knew we could have got the ISO certificate at the boat launch in 2013 but didn't think we'd need it and thought we could get it later.

We had a STIX Number of 36.697 so we thought: no problem.  We didn't know about the ORCi side, but wanted to get an ORCi rating as another handicap to compete on.  So we got the boat measured, and the ORCi stability index came out too low for the S2H, at just under 110.

No problem, we thought, we just need to get the ISO12217 and we have the STIX (Stability Index) well in excess of the requirement.

But, then we heard from CYCA who said that even with the ISO certificate and the STIX in excess of the requirements, they would not accept our entry. We thought of arguing this lack of understanding of what "or" means, but we figured we'd do that after getting the ISO...

We sent off two emails: one to get the ISO done formally, and another to ask the ORC people what we had to do to get a better number.  Neither replied immediately ...


So we thought ... how do we get up to a better ORCi number...?  Add weight to the keel.  So on the day we were supposed to leave for Sydney we found out from Rob that the boat was engineered for a keel that was 60kg heavier, so we could do that minimal adverse effects on performance, except for VMG running and light air performance.  Nobody could tell us at that time whether that would be OK, so we lifted the boat, stripped the keel to bare lead, and set about adding 60kg.

At about that point we heard from the ORCi guru we'd asked for help ... he said we would need to add __300kg__ to the keel, to nearly get to 115... !  Yikes, no way that can, or should, happen.  Not only would the rig, keel structures, etc etc, pretty much the whole boat need to be re-engineered, it would no longer be a fast boat.

Then the really bad news.  The ISO certificate criteria had changed, it now ignores the buoyancy of the cabin top and other structures above the deck.  Now we fell just short of getting that too.  He estimated that the 60 *might* have done it, but wasn't sure.

That, the very limited time available, plus the CYCA saying that even if we did get the ISO that they would decline our entry (arguable, sure, but sailing 1200nm to Sydney to then argue and possibly lose that argument doesn't sound like a good bet).  We heard that Groupama the Volvo 70 won the Volvo Ocean Race, but the same boat wasn't able to race in S2H without adding weight to the keel.  We suspect that the ORCi SI rule set by CYCA could do with some modernisation, like their insistence on SSBs.


Just for added interest, we heard via another participant in the S2H that, with a few weeks to go that NZ Safety at Sea certs would no longer be acceptable.  With no option to do a course in Australia in time, and a requirement that half of the crew had a valid certificate.   That's a little, er, underarm too.

Blink's Next Adventure - Sydney to Hobart 2017

Blink has had a few adventures in the last 16 months.  It started with the idea of doing the Auckland to Fiji Race early in 2016.  It would be Blink’s first big blue water race following her launch in August of 2013 and her local Wellington crew learning how to make her go quite fast (and who, like any good team, are still learning…).   To get to the start line was a magnificent achievement and what was to follow was just as exciting.

The lead up the Fiji race was an epic adventure in itself.  Getting the boat ready from Cat 2 to Cat 1, filling in Customs forms from NZ to Fiji; from Fiji to NZ (and more forms if crew change from Fiji to NZ), all in duplicate.  

The results for a 40 foot Wellington boat was 3^rd on Line (after a 70 foot Volvo Ocean Racer and and 88 footer), 2^nd on IRC and 3^rd on PHRF.  A nice addition to the results was winning the Wellington Muir Family Trophy for NZ Design and Build especially when the boat builder, Craig Patridge, was on board.

The adventure then extended to the Round the North Island 2 handed race in 2017.  After withdrawing in Wellington due to Tony being injured in nasty west coast conditions in 2011 being the worst weather since race was founded by Sir Peter Blake in 1977, Vesna had the wherewithall to get herself and Tony to Port Hardy after Tony’s injury and hypothermia.  After 17 hours on a mooring waiting for the storm to pass, Tony and Vesna completed the longest leg on Clear Vision to come fourth.  With injury and storm warnings for the Cook, it was sensible to stay in port for the start of the next leg. 

With unfinished business, Tony and Rob Shaw (Blink’s designer) then went on to win the 2014 RNI on Blink.

The task for the husband and wife team to win the 2017 race therefore seemed unreachable.   Not to be one to shy away from a challenge, and having some unfinished business, the thought of “just achieve” was not an option.   Vesna’s three goals of “alive, married and first” were set.  Tony tempered this with “alive, married and on the podium”.  Like any good marriage, the wife is always right and Blink was the overall Div 1 winner, 2^nd on IRC overall, First lady across the finish, Div 1 PHRF, Elliot Trophy for 1^st Overall and overall Line Honours.    Winning the RNI was a huge achievement for Blink and her crew. 

Following the RNI and with memories fading of the hard bits of the adventure, (memories of pain are generally poor, which possibly explains why women can bring themselves to have more than one child!), the adventure has turned into the Sydney to Hobart.   The Sydney to Hobart is an epic race and like rounding Cape Horn, top of sailor’s minds.  Blink would be one of the smallest boats in a race like this but she is very capable and strong so it seemed a logical next step especially when goals are set. 

The myriad of requirements which start with NZ Cat 1, move to Australian Cat 1 and then add in Sydney to Hobart requirements, the spreadsheet had some 1800 lines to ensure that the boat was ready.  The preparation started some months ago, entry completed in August and the list taken on in bite sized chunks to ensure that everything was covered.  Craig Shearer, Boat Captain and Chief Amazingly Good Guy (aka ‘Mr Wonderful’),  with Gordon ‘McGyver’ McDougall kicked everything along ensuring that all the requirements were met.

With having to deliver the boat from Wellington to Sydney just to get to the start line, Blink’s crew knew that they effectively had 4 weeks less than Sydney entries.  Delivery crew are Vesna, Craig, Gordy and Janet Mills.  The crew have advised that Captains Happy Hour may be allowed.  Dave Roberts has prepared some special coffee flavoured rum.  

We are grateful to Kim McMorran of McMorran's Boat Building who not only taught Tony and Vesna how to sail across the Cook in 2008 but is always interested in Blink's progress and who did Blink's Cat 1 safety check a couple of weeks ago.  He also kindly lent us Young Nichs SSB being a S2H requirement and provided many of the charts required to be carried.  Martin Hammond (aka Irish) carried out Blink's ORC and inclination test also a couple of weeks ago  - that was a huge job but Irish made it easy. Rob Shaw, designer of Blink, for helping with all the numbers Irish needed.  

The start of the S2H is Boxing Day.  Crew on Blink are all (or have been) Wellingtonians – Tony and Vesna Wells, Craig Shearer, Gordon McDougall, Jono Clough, Matt Stechman, Alex Mitchell-Barker and Luke O’Connell.  Five of the crew had to have sailed together in a major offshore being one of the Sydney to Hobart requirements (Tony and Vesna Wells, Luke O’Connell, Craig Shearer,  Gordon McDougall. Jono Clough (sailing on Giacomo to Fiji) is the sixth. 

Shaw (Shore) Crew are Janet Gibb (regularly sails on Blink) and Carol Rothschild.  Janet and Carol will be driving from Sydney to Hobart in a van with all of Blink's non racing and delivery gear.  

Janet Gibb is in our team photo here (centre). Carol is also a Wellingtonian but is now based in Melbourne, Australia.

Blink departs from NZ Shores on 1 December weather permitting.  Stay tuned for more updates…..

[Thanks to Chris Coad of Chris Coad Photography chriscoad.co.nz for taking the team's pic before departure].

Interview at the RNI finish ... from SSANZ

https://www.facebook.com/ssanz.inc/videos/1384923391554019/

Put together by Cameron Thorpe (I think)

Round North Island 2-handed Prizegiving

We managed to collect a few bits of hardware at the prize giving for the RNI last night ...  some of them for the second time

Yellow flag for overall division one winner

"Rum??" you're thinking ... that's not a conventional trophy - but this rum is very special: the 'hard arse' award for Vesna sailing more than half of the race (>800nm) with a fractured clavicle.  Which she didn't want XRayed in the Wellington stopover in case she found out it was fractured (!)

VW with flag, TW and Rob Shaw (with an IRC trophy for 2nd overall  

Yes really, despite IRC of 1.362 ... couldn't resist asking Rob to hold that one)

Fastest woman ... no, wait, that sounds wrong ... fastest handicapped woman? ... no, wait,...

Div 1 PHRF trophy

Elliot Trophy - 1st on overall elapsed time... 2nd time we had this one

Line honours trophy (2014 and 2017)

Thunderstruck

Blink's Round North Island 2-handed (RNI2h) 2017

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. 

just before leg 3 start

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 ...