The News Archives

Well done in Saturday's race. Lots of fun. Excellent efforts from everyone. Two cock-up's in a 20 mile race is a pretty fine effort. Three broaches in a couple of minutes were a bit on the hard side. At least we didn't lose anyone over the rail.

We got Kangaroo Court Fined (thanks for stepping up Neale) for letting Resolve in after we were ahead of them. None of us believe we were ever ahead of them so once again it's a bit of a farce but all in good fun.

Flying Boat thought the course read 87 (it read 67) so sailed a bit further than the rest of us and suffered at the hands of the Kangaroo Court also... Good to keep Andiamo, Nedax and The Guarantee out on line. Reality sets in when you realise that they started a fair few minutes behind us though. We must have just been pipped for second on club handicap.

Top Speed only 18.3kts, some good long spells of speed though and plenty of spray. Mentioned to Gordy that we had a good foot of slack in the forestay going downwind. It sounds like they all did on Saturday. There was plenty of breeze at times.

We had some fantastic crew work with awesome hoists and drops and were getting some great numbers going upwind.

Hopefully you guys are listening to what Janine is calling out on the up and downhills. She can't do it all of the time and it isn't an exact science so don't be frightened to yell out if you see something. It makes steering the boat a lot easier believe me and gives the main trimmer and helmsman the information that they need to set up the boat for gusts or lulls.

Some of you may have heard Steve yell out that we were sailing by the lee going downwind. This is a pretty dangerous situation so get him to explain it to you if you don't know what it means. The short explanation is keep your head down.

It's all a big learning curve.

The results apparently were

On Line

On Club Handicap

So a third place is a pretty fine effort.

Looking forward to being back in town for the 18th of November ( I fly to New Plymouth after the race) and then I am out for the race after that although hopefully we will have Neale to helm in my absence if I ask nicely.

The main comes off in the next week for some loving. Our new Jib should arrive from overseas for Neale to complete. The running backstays should be re-rigged, gennaker rigging sorted. If you had any issues with gear breakages or problems let me know while you remember so that we can get onto sorting it out.

Keep an eye on the web site for new photo's or blurbage and I saw Chris Coad out there and maybe David or John were there also.

Thanks again it was a fun sail.

Hi Team, not sure what the results are yet for the weekend. They are in the sport section of the Dom Post according to the latest Newsletter from the Yacht Club.

What a great sail we had !!

Our start wasn't the best but we got out of that OK. The course was approx 17nm so not as long as the previous week and the waves were less of an issue. This time though we had quite a strong tide which proved a challenge on the beat from Falcon Shoal back up to Horokiwi. We stayed on the tack up to Ward Island for too long and that cost us a bit of time then on the tack up the harbour we probably stayed on that one too long and got nailed. The two kite runs were fantastic. Great crew work on the hoists and drops and trimming.

Our crew work was superb all day. Well done.

Top speed registered was 18.7kts with the big grey kite up although we believe that the paddle was out of the water on some of the gusts and our top speed was in fact a wee bit higher than this. Gus's nose and Ben's elbow came together on the bow in one of the run's. Good to see Gus keep going.

I am away for the next three weeks (returning 24 October) so the boat is in Neale and Janine's capable hands. They will be chasing you for commitment to the next three races so please respond to them quickly so that they have a good chance of racing.

Janine will be collecting information for the Next Of Kin forms for the Brothers Race on the 28th of Oct. This is the first of the Premier Offshore Series and is a great race.

Have a great time racing the boat and I look forward to reading the race reports.

Availability

To save Janine work can you please advise availability for this weekend (7th) and next weekend (14th) both are the last Spring Series days and then for the 28th which is the 'Brothers Race' across Cook Strait and home.

Report times for the 7th and 14th are 1100hrs. If you get down to the boat early please attack the list of pre-sail tasks that is on the counter..

Thanks to those of you that braved opening day we were rewarded with a fine second place to Nedax Backchat by a mere 19 seconds!!!! The seconds really count.

To the spray/wave catchers on the rail well done, The beer garden team hardly got wet…. (yeah right). I know I got most of you wet in the first 30 seconds, sorry about that guys.

It was a very good call not to run a kite in those conditions. Nedax said it was pretty tough work and we got through the day almost unscathed. A lot of the others didn't and the last thing I wanted to do was damage the boat before the real racing starts.

Who will forget those reaches, just brilliant and the first leg to Point Halswell with Andiamo and Pretty Boy Floyd thundering along just under us.

The 'Rail Meat' put on a brilliant display of keeping the boat as flat as they could and as we said at our pre-race briefing 'Flat is Fast' It was great to see you guys hanging in on the rail before the tacks right up to the last second. Makes a huge difference and helps keep the boat under control.

This coming Saturday is the start of the Spring Series.

PS:- no updates on the web site last week due to the web guy cruising around the Hauraki Gulf. Anybody that has contributions, photo's or verbage, please feel free to send them to John at johnhs@ihug.co.nz
[It was fantastic - sailing to Great Barrier, fishing, no shaving, eating pickled onions, drinking lots of beer! - JHS]

Well a somewhat spectacular finish to the Winter Series after a nice broach which was photographed by the Vice Commodore. Two Kangaroo Court Fines followed it seems however no FC crew on hand to dig deep. We have been told the fines will not go away.

Neale is trying to find some video footage of some one design racing to show you all at the planned 'Flying Circus End of Season BBQ' (Date yet to be set). It's a great idea as we are always too busy to look at what other crews are doing. Who knows we may even get our own video tape done during a race to show what goes on and look at what we can do to improve. Wanted old video camera and very small person to operate it.

The new season gets underway in mid September and we will be looking to get some commitment for racing the new season from you.

We will set the date and get back to you soon about the boat BBQ.

Since getting the boat back in the water after antifouling and polishing the topsides we have been racing twice. The last race a couple of weeks ago we had to withdraw from as we broke our mainsheet swivel block.in a gybe on our second downwind. Carbon balls rolling around on the deck and tortured aluminium meant it would be too hard and risky to do the final up-down and we withdrew. Bit of a shame as we had excellent speed uphill in about 15kts of breeze. Our downwind sailing left a bit to be desired with some crappy sail handling handing all the gains we made uphill back to those we had passed. Plenty to be said for some practise hoists and stuff before the start. Despite all this it was a great day for sailing. Neale had bought the rum and we had a good go at it. Sadly it was Steve our new crew mate’s first sail so he is yet to see a finish line.

Gordy had plenty to fix before we raced next. The swivel block is now built in stainless and is well reinforced. Angles have been changed to improve the cleating action. The sheave for the spinnaker halyard has been replaced so that will make the hoists a little easier. He also pulled her out and gave the hull a quick ‘Duffy Clean’.

We still have a few projects to sort out. The stainless straps which hold the mainsheet blocks in place on the boom have had the rivets fret on them and we are going to have to replace them with a couple of webbing strops which will help the boom to last a wee while longer.

The stanchions need to be strengthened mid way up the deck. We may move them in so that we can put a plate under them. Be good to put some webbing in lieu of lifeline to make it easier on hips, stomachs and the like.

We are waiting for some fine days to plug the mast and stop the constant influx of rainwater down the mast. Last two times we have sailed there has been in excess of 150 litres of water in the bow/toilet area to empty out before we sail.

Looking inside yesterday we must be due for a clean up. Since the Line 7 we have accumulated a bit of crap which will be slowing us down a bit. I will think of a date to do a working bee.

Racing again in two weeks. This time we hope we have Craig, Gav and Brian back. This will bring us up to a full team and hopefully we will have a bit of breeze.

We sailed the re-run of the RPNYC Night Race last night. Starting at 1900hrs we gathered a crew of Janine, Helen, Dave, Gav, Craig, Neale and Graeme.

Looking around the marina there was an absence of activity. We saw some activity on Pretty Boy Floyd so we knew it was at least a two horse race.

The forecast was a shocker. 20 – 30 kt Southerly building to more. Heavy Rain. Still we put an extra bottle of rum on board and pushed off in a little more than 3 kts.

The breeze built on the start three boats entered in total. Carol in Can do too had dragged her crew out. We were a bit disappointed that there weren’t any more boats. It’s a great idea to race at night as it challenges your navigation skills and hones your sailing senses.

Port Nicholson Race Control advised us of the shipping movements for the night, gave us the course and off we went. Good to start with lights for a change.

I have mad a mental note to get a watch that has a light on it that stays on.

We charged off to Jerningham with Brendan and the PBF team stretching out a lead. Tacking up Evans Bay to the Shoal Pile and had a few good lifts to limit the damage that the quick Ross 40 was doing to us. We squeezed past Greta point by a couple of boat lengths and then got lifted up to be pointing straight up the bay. We tacked on a knock to the lay line then got lifted to overlay so had the luxury of cracked sheets and an easy hoist just past the mark. The other boast must have wondered what was going on as we discovered a glitch with the halyards. Torches were being pointed at the halyard sheaves and we came up with a plan to sort it all out.

We headed to Point Halswell our next mark sliding quietly between the moored naval vessel and the point dropping the kite and doing a bare headed hoist after we sorted the tangle then climbed up to windward through Kau Bay to the No.1 Leading Light. Wasn’t much of a navigational exercise for us as we got to pretty much follow PBF stern light the whole way around. We drove into the beach a bit further than PBF to ensure that we cleared them as they ran down to Somes Island plus we had a nice lift. We tacked across after they slid past us under spinnaker and then tacked on the lay line to No1 Leading light. We had interesting calls on distance to the mark. It’s amazing how a flashing light looks closer than it is. Anyway we got lifted up past the mark and had an easy rounding and a great hoist with a starboard pole.

Off we headed to Somes Island and with a cruisey 8 – 10kts on the log Neale suggested rum to help pass the time. Gliding past Somes making sure we kept a little clearance to stay in the breeze we needed to gybe and this is where we had some fun. It’s a good thing it was dark. We would have thoroughly confused the competition.

We managed to get the kite inside the forestay thanks to some erratic driving on the part of the helmsman, then we twisted it around the forestay, then we dropped it and got the jib up ready for the beat up to the finish line.

We rounded Lizard and got settled into the groove. Neale called for weight on the rail (meaning me to get arse off helm and onto the rail). Craig shifted to mainsheet, Helen shifted to helm and GJ aka the ‘canting keel’ hung arse over the side. Some good hard hiking saw great boat speed and a really enjoyable sail back up the harbour to the finish line. Not sure how far behind PBF at the end, the results will tell the tale.

The team did a great job, we had great boat speed, great tacks and trim, can’t claim any fame for navigating as PBF did that for us. The rum afterwards was great too.

Thanks again team for a great job.

Neale, Craig and I grabbed the opportunity to race on ‘Fineline’ for this years Auckland to Tauranga race.

Neale was in Auckalofa for ‘work’ Craig and I flew up Wednesday night getting into the hotel at about 9.30pm thankfully finding a cardboard box with two lifejackets waiting for us. We get nailed by the airlines if we have our CO2 canisters on board.

We met at the boat ‘P33’ some new faces, Matt, Mike and JD. Some familiar ones too, Dan, Nick, Phil and Greg.

A word of advice. Make sure you wear a belt around Nick. He did the most expert de-pants that I have seen in many years. Obviously a man that trains.

Close to 70 boats of all sorts from small keelers to canting keelers, TP52’s, IOR racers and multihulls of all sizes and shapes had entered. I think the oldest boat was 35 years old, the newest well who knows it still had the plastic on it. No Farr 40’s sadly and some of the other hotshot 40’s were missing as well but it was still a very powerful fleet.

The weather was fine; the track was covered in a light breeze which dropped to nothing just before the start. No suitcases were spotted floating under the bridge at this time.

During the pre-start manoeuvring we managed to snag a sheet on the sail drive so it was brave skipper Greg that doffed clothing and plunged over the side with a line tied around his waist. 45 seconds later he was back aboard as was the errant sheet and we were ready to go. The water looked bloody cold.

Sails up and we were off without a second to spare. The breeze was a lottery. Boats went from zero to hero and back again. We ended up in front for a wee while till a big cat the size of a small aircraft carrier clawed its way past us blanketing us with its almost square mainsail. I don’t think they even spilt their G & T’s or got out of their deckchairs.

We didn’t really stop moving during the entire race. Once we got out of Auckland Harbour the breeze was solid right up to within 20 miles of Tauranga.

It was a dream run really. Fractional Gennaker, Masthead Kite, Jib Top and finishing off with the #1 Genoa for the beat to the finish. Beautiful scenery, it was great.

There was plenty of close racing with ourselves, Jive Talking, Force Eleven, Revs, Blackout and a few others all scrapping it out. A nice little Thompson 30 (I Think) called Waka lost her stick in the waves at Hole in the Rock. It was a long way home on a small outboard. More drama it seemed as a crewman was taken off one boat for stitches after a mishap.

We had green water up to the front hatch under kite at one stage and speeds were up around mid 17’s which was great fun. There was some excellent helming down the waves and the extra few metres of mast and changes in keel, rudder and engine position and of course a prod definitely make all the difference. It’s kind of fun having the crew all dangling off the transom powering down the waves with the mainsheet man pumping the mainsail.

The race wasn’t without drama. We were neck and neck with Force Eleven the carbon rigged, prodded Young 11 for half the race. We had a half hour period where we managed to mix up some sheets, trawl a gennaker stopping the boat and generally have some mix ups for no real reason. When it goes bad it keeps going bad which knocked us back a bit and as a result we lost touch with our arch rivals Force the Lemon. (Bugger) We did sail well despite this.

We had dolphins playing alongside for hours, quite amazing seeing the efflorescence off their bodies as they move. The rail meat slowly began to freeze from about 8pm. We started putting on layers until there was nothing left in any of our bags. The cold wasn’t really expected (by me anyway) It was soon fixed by a big meal of spicy rice on the rail followed a couple of hours later by an equally big feed of instant noodles. The stiff rums that Craig handed out after the finish did the trick warming the heart up.

We crept into Tauranga around 2.40am, a few minutes behind Force Eleven. Hey we celebrated anyway with a few bottles of rum and some hilarity on the jetty followed by a couple more at the yacht club which was still going at that time. Some wise men (GJ, Craig, Greg, J.D and Phil) crashed at 6am on wet sails in the boat. The snoring was impressive according to Craig. Neale found himself a quiet spot in the yacht club curled upon the carpet. Nick, Dan, Mike and Matt kept going. We were roused by the rumour of breakfast at 7am after a very restful 1hr sleep. Breakfast arrived at 8.30 and there were generous portions of a fantastic cooked breakfast consumed.

Slid out of the yacht club at 10am and looked for a cab, dropped Neale off at the bus station (that’s another story) and headed over to the Mount to our accommodation. A good sleep for at least a couple of hours was enjoyed before the support crew turned up.

The post mortem. Well we could have positioned ourselves better on the course at times. That was more luck than good tactics breeze comes and goes. Sail choices were generally on the button although we hung on too long before changing a couple of times. We clearly gave it away during our ½ hr of drama. We had excellent boat speed for most of the race and were well pleased with the result. We came to the conclusion that yes we could have had them if it hadn’t been for our ½ hour of drama. I guess that’s how it goes.

It was a great race. The Tauranga Yacht Club were fantastic hosts. We were led into the marina shown our berth then handed PlaceMakers Goodies Bags full of Hot Cross Buns, Rum and Cokes and other bits and pieces. The yacht club was going off and the breakfast was fantastic. They had free pies for the crews. GJ resisted the temptation. Phil and Fiona, Craig and Jen and Graeme, Tonia and Alexey attended the prizegiving which after an hour was just too much. We slid out a side door.

Thanks to Greg, Phil, Nick and the boys off ‘Fineline’ for having us. She is a fast boat and we had a great time.

The crew of Flying Circus approached the Line 7 regatta somewhat dubiously this year – Graeme had the boat in pristine and super-lightweight condition, but there was a fair bit of rust on the crew. We decided on the “out there to have fun” approach, so entered the Open Division.

This approach lasted five minutes.

When Aucklanders Greg, Nick and Dan joined Graeme, Neale, Craig, Gus, Gavin and Janine on board it was clear we were here to do well. The level of sailing stepped up several notches – as a result we all enjoyed the regatta far more. Although Neale had far less to say...

The stunning weather left us wishing for that #1 genoa and larger, lighter spinnaker that had been forgone for our handicap rating.

Race officers John and Linda Parrish ran a well-oiled regatta with a mix of laid and harbour courses. The first day warmed up with two windward-leewards in the morning, then a jaunt around the harbour in the afternoon. Three guns in three races left us buzzing!

Day two and hopes were high for a clean sweep of line honours. However, we suffered from too many rums and bad dancing to the Beat Girls the previous night. Race four, we had a bad start from which we recovered with some great sailing for an exciting battle down to the finish with Astruso – oh for that prod!

The last race we lost the plot completely. A wind shift at the start saw us in completely the wrong position on the line, and this never changed throughout the race. Lesson learned: never let the bowman call the shots on the start line.

The disappointment of these last two races was overcome by a great afternoon watching the Volvo restart.

On return to the Club the results were posted and we were stunned to find we were first on handicap and line – an awesome end to a fantastic weekend on the water.

This weekend we are racing over at the Lowry Bay Yacht Club's 'Lindauer Sail Wellington Regatta'.

Sailed over two days the crew this week is made up of our good friends off the very quick Ross 930 'Splash Palace' and a few of the 'Circus Team'.

It sounds like our kind of weather with 10 15kts forecast for Saturday and 20 to 25 kts Sunday.

This regatta is normally very well supported by the Port Nic Keel Boats so hopefully it will be exciting racing and some superb socialising afterwards.

A busy weekend of sailing for Flying Circus.

Friday saw us sail the 2006 Business House Race. We hosted several customers from Alleasing, Murray Bridge of 'The Guarantee' fame.

Crew was GJ, Craig and Janine although Janine negotiated a dry race in the start box to help her cold get better and Geoff Herd of 'Splash Palace' joined us.

Decided to give Geoff the helm as he hadn't sailed on 'Circus', Craig handled gib trim and I did main.

The weather was light and flat with a little drizzle and with a time grouped start we were led away by the smaller boats by half an hour. The breeze never really freshened so by the time we started a number of our competitors decided to fly sails outside of the sailing instructions. This gave them a bit of an advantage although surprisingly we stayed in touch with Kimbo in 'Young Nic' who was flying his black masthead gennaker until we got to Ward Island where he picked up a breeze that we didn't.

The most exciting part of the day was when we were caught by 'Pretty Boy Floyd' and they attempted to water bomb us. We sailed well and took time out of the smaller boats however the weather conditions counted against the bigger boats (despite the others breaching the rules flying gennakers) and we pretty much finished as we started. Thanks to Craig and Geoff and Janine for helping out. The punters had a great time.

What a regatta!

We raced Open Keelboat as this was a two day regatta compared to the ORC/IRC division which raced Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Graeme being unable to race the Friday due to business.

Thanks to everyone that put in the effort to get ‘Circus’ ready to race. Special thanks to Craig who at no notice installed the new Contest 130 compass and emptied the boat with some help from his crew. A big job, thanks mate.

Neale delivered not only a new headsail that was blisteringly fast, he also provided the team with the after match uniform of Quantum Shirts and Hats which looked great. We rewarded him with a great result for Quantum.

Greg, Nick and Dan from ‘Fineline’ came down and showed us how they do it. The three ring in’s meshed well with our team of Janine, Craig, Gus, Gav, Neale and GJ. What we learned from these guys was how if everyone does their job well and focuses on making the boat go fast then the boat goes fast. Bugger me is it that simple?

The boat was fast. It was great conditions for us. We had superb upwind speed. Our worst performance was in 5kts of breeze where our short foot headsail strategy just doesn’t work.

The food and alcohol logistics were managed by Tonia and the jetty session afterwards particularly on Saturday when Tonia, Jen, Debbie and Taggart turned up was great fun followed of course by a couple of beers at the club and the Beat Girls.

We had a great regatta. Thanks to the team for their efforts and contribution to our success. We have a very nice trophy to add to the trophy cabinet.

This year Graeme ventured North to sail on ‘Fineline’ the hot rod Young 11 that sails out of Auckland. Owned by Greg and Phil Pritchard, ‘Fineline’ has been on the receiving end of some intensive performance lifting work. New keel, taller mast, new rudder, retractable prod all transform this boat into a formidable machine as was borne out in the results from the 06 Bay of Islands Race Week with a third place in Div 2. I had a great experience sailing with a great bunch of people that really know how to sail.

Graeme learned a lot from his sailing up North.

Lesson 1
Lighten the boat. Everything non essential to make boat go faster gets taken off. Safety equipment stays on. Crew travel light. Changes of clothes stay on shore.

Lesson 2
Hike hard all the time. Flat in a Y11 = Fast. Stay on the rail think about who does what. Lightest person goes off the rail, everyone else goes hard to compensate.

Lesson 3
Bigger is not always faster. Masthead Gennaker, High 17’s before tearing tack out, Smaller Gennaker High 17’s and sustainable.

Lesson 4
Boat goes fastest when everyone is concentrating and giving 100%. This means no hangovers. If you aren’t able to give 100% you shouldn’t be on the boat as you are letting others down.

Lesson 5
Dress for the race. If it looks like it’s going to be cold dress for it before the race not halfway through.

Lesson 6
Speed is King and everyone benefits when they can see it. (Project for Flying Circus is mast readouts)

Lesson 8
Too Tight = slow. If in doubt ease it out, particularly mainsheet.

Lesson 9
Back up before races. Weed on foils is slow.

Lesson 10
Success is a great motivator.

Flying Circus raced under the control of Gordy, Janine and Craig as Graeme and Tonia were off enjoying their second trip to Siberia.

The guests for the day were Alleasing. By all accounts a great bunch of people who really enjoyed their day.

The race was on with the very quick Elliott ‘Nedax Backchat’, a great battle followed and the winning margin was very small. The clincher it seems was an emergency tack to avoid one of the MRX boats which added some time to Nedax and gave Flying Circus the margin it needed to win. A great result and looking at the photo’s on Chris Coad’s site a very good night followed.

Huge thanks to Gordy who taught the team heaps and to Janine and Craig who ran the boat and hosted the customers professionally. Well done.