sail melbourne coaching the skud 18

we had an incident with our new boat and bent the mast. it used to be an aussie boat and we put NZL on the sails i dont think it liked us. so the next day we put a green and yellow rope on the mainsheet to fool the boat into thinking it was still an aussie, the next day no dramas, I think we tricked the boat!

Tim and pauline sailing the new skud to the finish of race 4 no dramas and getting closer to the top boats.

tim and pauline with their 3rd place bibs (which we had to give away after placing 4th and 4th today.

I am coaching at sail melbourne this year. I have been coaching tim in the skud for nearly 2 years now and we as a team with pauline have sailed 10 times. we are really happy with how things are comming along, our boat handling is better than all the boats . we need to work on our down wind angles in the light but things are comming along nicely.

looking forward to some more wind tomora!!

kings cup

photo of us on tour on the layday

me giving a motivational speech at he crew dinner.

some serious sailing from burgo in the practice race.

my team and our new backpacker friends

Kings Cup 2009

we started this regatta in light winds muggy hot temperature ???

we kicked off the regatta in fine form taking the first race comfortably, we put this down to the practise we got during the Rajamuda regatta. It was good to come out firing and kick the regatta of in good fashion.

In the second race the breeze died down below 8 knots which is hard for us to preform with the heavy Benetau. We got really tangled up with phoenix an IRC'd quarter tonner, we avoided them shooting the top mark and protested, in the room they decided that they had not tacked within the zone so it was dropped.

Phoenix at the top mark have they tacked?

We then tangled with them again at the bottom mark as we came in on starboard and on the inside of them with room. We tangled up and flew the red flag again. We finished in 9^th for that race in the protest room we sent our female representative Gemma Farrell who put forward a brilliant case and took picking us up on results to 8^th.

In the third race we sailed better but still the light winds held us back we battled through and got a 4^th placing.

On day 2 we had a long race and headed around the bottom of Phuket island and up to the island called Koh Lon!! funny name.

We sailed a really tough beat as the tide started to push against us we had a big match race with madam butterfly again bouncing each other up the shoreline out of tide. We lost out with a tight lee bow and I decided to dip and take the right hand advantage, however the left was so favoured they crossed ahead of us bad call. From there It was follow the leader to the finish we took a little time out of them with two good shifts but then at the turning mark we picked up a fishing pot which stopped us dead in the water. We dropped sails, backed off the rope and carried on. Luckily it didn't cost us much as we came away with a second placing.

Race day 3 we had 2 windward leewards with 8-12 knots we liked the look of the forcast but the race committee wasn't happy with the 25 degree shifts rather than middle the 2wind directions they waited for it to drop and settle in direction. Much to my frustration the 8 knots again not really suiting us. Our game plan was to beat madam butterfly at all costs ignoring the other yachts in our division. The game plan worked out ok for us we beat madam butterfly on line but still behind on corrected time. In race 2 we sailed a perla and beat them. Placing 3^rd and 4^th

the party

we headed off to the bar bearing in mind that we had a lay day planned the next day we got stuck into the free food and drinks, a blues brothers band played and we danced until close then off to the fullmoon party at Karon beach.

We had a VIP area for the yachties with free refreshments and a massive dance party on the sand, kiwi vs aussie scrums which ended with 2 crook necks and a sore shoulder (2 injuries from the aussie side of the scrum and only 1 in the kiwi camp.

Myself Andrew Clouston and Kelvin Holdt making a pretty formidable front row.

I'm looking forward to heading out again tomorrow and taking this regatta out. We have a long race scheduled with 12-14 knots which will hopefully play into our hands.

geralda in 2 handed RNZYS series

Putting the new gennaker through its paces the boat set out on a 2 handed windward leeward evening of racing with the squaddy. Im happy with how much water the boat throws around!!

Keep an eye out for Geralda in the comodores cup events, the route 66 race and plenty more wed night races as well as the odd coastal leg weather depending.

bring on some more 650 boats to race i say!!!

more pix from leg 2 form pangkor to penang. we had a pretty good race started in 25 knots witha good swell full mainsail and number 3 jib we stuck to the right of the rumb line to stay inshore hunting for a wind change that should ut us in front we watnted a land breeze.

a miassive rain cloud came over and killed the wind we then headed towards land using the paraent wind fromt eh tops of the waves to propel us toward the beach at .5 of a knot we got there first and managed to skip along in a light 5 knot land breeze putting us infront of our competitor except for one. we got our gennaker up and were doing 8 knots skipping along the mud flats with 3-4meters of water pretty scary sailing at times in unknown waters.

we ended up 2nd on irc in our class so really happy with the result

more pix this time from leg 2 from pangkor to penang. we hadd a pretty good race started in 25 knots with a full main and number 3 jib we stuck to the right of the rumb line to stay inshore hunting for the wind change to a land breeze at night. the rain came and killed the breeze so we used the swell to push us towards the land doing 2 knots don each wave with no real wind but the aparent created from the swell. we hooked into some wind off the beach and stated to skim our way up the coast doning 8 knots under gennaker in 3-4 meters of water. bit scary at times.

we fisnshed in 2nd place on irc and were very happy with the result

a windy rainy first leg of the rajamuda has given us a third placing on irc.

it was sooo wet we didnt bother to get the camera out untill prizgiving.

top photo of rich showing the silver wear and the bottom new team shirts. a piece of advice never post anything on your blog you wouldnt want printed on a t shirt.

sorry bex hahahahah.

geralda in training

Here are some pix of geralda sailing on the waitemata harbour gearing up for the coastal classic.
in these images we are running the old mainsail.

it was 5 long weeks everyday after work (days that wernt raining) and solid days in the weekend to rebuild the mast step (thanks ian neely and buzz) and getting the boat up to cat 3 safety standard.

Geralda the giant slayer!

This is my new boat and i did a 2 handed race on the weekend a 42 mile boost around the Hauraki Gulf in Auckland. We were the smallest boat in the fleet and notched up a 2nd on corected time!

A few little modifications and we hope to take out the next race.

Thanks to SSANZ for putting on a great race and to Andrew Clouston for a fantastic job as my crew and co helmsman.