On February 24, 24 two-man crews set out from Auckland on the Two Handed Round North Island race.
The boats are sailing right around the island - with stops at Mangonui, Wellington and Napier.
The crew of Thompson 850 Waka, Jonty Cullinane and Josh Tucker, are blogging for nzherald.co.nz throughout the race.
View photos of the raceKEY POINTS:
After a fantastic stay in Wellington with a slightly heavy head from Thursday night, we headed north into a forecast with plenty of wind and swell. Our plan was to hold everything together as we beat into the wind out of Wellington and around Cape Palliser before hoisting a kite and legging it to Napier. Not an ideal leg for us - but okay nonetheless.
We got to Evans Bay just after the start to have all our electronics shut down. The batteries had been on charge but did not seem to have held any. So we headed back to the marina to get the third battery which had been removed after the west coast leg, then followed the fleet out of Wellington harbour by 40 or so minutes.
Despite a lumpy wind against tide swell beating into 25 to 35 knots of wind, we managed to pull back a chunk of the fleet by the time we reached Cape Palliser at 3am. Unfortunately the kite ride never happened. The whole way up the coast the wind moved forward every time we could bear away.
With a two metre swell or more Waka was seriously wet and bouncing all over the show. We bailed a bucket or more of water every hour. Everything got wet. We managed to sleep on the cabin floor (although we stayed in our Gill Key West gear for the whole trip) with the bean bag and lived on EAS shakes after the igniter for the stove got wet.
The conditions could have been much worse and the leg was a good reminder of how uncomfortable that would be on Waka. Our result will be a bit sad as given the angle after Palliser we had few tactical options and had to live with only 28 feet of length upwind - which makes it hard to sail to a handicap similar to a 40 footer.
In the meantime we are enjoying Napier and trying to dry out. Hopefully there will be phone coverage for the next leg (which is starting on Friday) and conditions which mean it is safe to take the phone out of the dry bag. In the cabin, at least.
Josh hopes to write a detailed report with photos and video for tomorrow.
