Opua: Wednesday race
Opua: Wednesday race
All over the world yacht clubs run Wednesday evening beer can races during the summer. The Opua Cruising Club is no exception. The start and finish line is about two hundred yards/meters from my mooring and provides entertainment for my evening drink.
Generally there are 25 to 30 boats divided into two classes. A half dozen or so pure racers start five minutes ahead of the rest of the fleet.
Most of the time the course is north to a buoy off Paihia and back; but tonight with wind from the southwest, the course was a broad reach to the east with a return close-hauled on port tack.
In the photograph the racers with spinnakers set are in the distance beyond the rest of the fleet.
I’ve already made the mental transition and am ready to return to Carol and the Northern winter. Only two more Wednesdays. I do enjoy watching boats under sail, which are among the most beautiful of man’s creations.
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While the south end of this country is being blown apart by the low I mentioned yesterday, with winds in excess of 100 mph, it was calm here this morning, which enabled me to unbend the mainsail, fold it, wrestle it into a sailbag, the sailbag into the dinghy, then into a dock cart trundled to the sailmaker to have the battens replaced and a third reef sewn in.
RESURGAM had only two internal reef lines in her boom, so I had her sails made with two reef points, but not at the normal first and second reef positions. Instead I had sailmakers put the first reef at what would normally one and a half reefs, and the second at what would normally be the third reef. This works very well, and saves effort, so I continued the practice with THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, although her boom is prepared for three reef lines. However, my sailmaker forgot on my most recent mainsail and put the two reefs in the normal, but for me wrong places. Thus the need for a third. I will still use only two reef lines, but run them to the second and third reefs and ignore the first.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007