Hopefully my cooking can be this much fun….

Where to from here ….

 

Summer is coming I am pretty sure… The light at the end of the tunnel of winter darkness. Since the last race both Rob and I have been having a bit of time off, Rob has been working very hard on the boat for months, but really since about August last year!

So the program from here:

• September 18th – SIMRAD  100  –  the long race as they call it, 100nm for the long haul boats and 80nm for us short haulers. Given how long the last two races have been I wonder if we maybe  finishing in daylight… We are currently leading the series on PHRF and Line for the short haul fleet, so we really need to put a good race together to ensure a good series  result. This is a familiar situation, as we went into the “long race” last year leading the Young 88’s. Hopefully we can keep our act together again this year.
• October 22nd – the HSBC Coastal Classic - 119nm from Auckland to the Bay of Islands.  I really enjoyed this race last year, especially the cruise back down the coast afterwards, and the visit to the Poor Knights.
• November 26th – the Round White Island Race  - 320nm from Auckland around White Island and back. Our only chance to stretch our legs in a multi day race before the RNI.

In between the events we need to squeeze in working on the mast to prepare it for offshore sailing again and complete our safety inspection. Doesn’t sound like much, but yachts have the ability to sap time.

I personally am really looking forward to some warmer weather, I find it a huge mental and physically lift not wearing 5 layers of clothes. I have been sitting in front of the fire lately,  hitting the “peer reviewed journal articles” (Rob quizzes me on the source of any information I give him) looking into the science of multiday event nutrition.  I will soon be busy in the kitchen testing a series of easy to prepare nutritionally sound (tasty and Rob approved) meals  for our expedition.

Need some help to get fit for sailing?

 

 

My dear friend Sara Winther last weekend placed 3rd at the Weymouth Sail for Gold, the pre-pre Olympics. Sara is a  great friend of mine and of late has provided me with personal training, to help me get my sorry body ready to sail Round the North Island.

Sara is looking for work to enable her to continue to prepare for the 2012 Olympics.

If you are looking for someone to help you with your fitness why not get someone who really understands sailing to show you the way.

Sara has been a degree in sport and also has completed tertiary training in physical education. Coupled with this formal training, Sara has been an Academy of Sport  athlete for 8 years, this has meant that she has worked with the best physical trainers available.

 

What can Sara provide ?

• Sailing focussed fitness programs
• One-on-one sessions to improve technique 
• Motivation
• Strategies for coping with  having a life, being injured and other distractions
• On water coaching for dinghies

Check out Sara’s Website www.sarawinther.com.

Your view

Coppelia’s track – source www.marinetraffic.com – available on our AIS location page.

 

Using our AIS location map, at home you can see what we are upto, here is our track from Saturday / Sunday morning. When we are racing click on AIS location map, and look for the pink boat – it means pleasure craft!

Simrad in more detail...

Our electronic engineer, my partner Neil struggles with the electronics on Coppelia

All week Rob and I had it our heads that it was going to be a windy race. We hassled the sail maker into finishing our  #3 jib, so when it blew over 25 knots we actually had a sail to use. Rob put the patches on the main to protect it from the spreaders if we had to reef. We packed the boat on Friday in the pouring rain,and very fresh winds. Neil tried in vain to restore our Ocean Pilot (Navico '90's electronic self steering) so we could both pull the kite down, in these forecasted gale force winds.

We left Gulf Harbour late at 6:30 am, happy the tide was coming in and the wind also was pushing us towards the start. The wind was dieing from the moment we got the boat, and as we snacked on breakfast and downloaded the latest weather data, the air was still, with ongoing cold rain.

At 9am, the first start got away, but as we got ready for our start, racing was postponed, as just like in the last race, the wind disappeared. So we waited, boiled the kettle and had cups of coffee. When we finally started the wind was already quiet far to the right. The biggest challenge in the leg to Navy Buoy was steering through the mine fields of sea weed. Rob steered the boat and I directed from the bow to try and keep our rudder weed free. Others were not so lucky, with a couple of boats stopping and having to sail back wards to removed  weed from their keels. Just after Rangitoto Lighthouse, the wind died all together, by this time we were the most easterly of all the boats, and I was concerned that the weather was ahead of the forecast and the next shift would be from the west. We were lucky however and when the wind did come back it was of a similar direction as to before.

Rob marks the main sail for the spreader patches for the second reef.

 As we rounded Navy Buoy the wind increased to 12 knots and for a short while we considered a change to a smaller jib. Witchy Women, a Young 11, from the same pier as Coppelia at Gulf Harbour rounded second. They then started to work to the northern side of course. Rob was keen to go out side the Noisey's having been becalmed  to the south of them previously, I was keen to stay to the left of course (north) because of the weather forecast, and we were both keen to make sure that we stayed between Witchy Women, the only boat in out division we could see and the mark.

 The wind shifted right, to the south, (not so good) so we did the best we could and headed both by sailing and tidal current to Gannet Rock. We rounded after dark, and were happy to hear the voice of Stuart from Flyer on the mystery boat that had caught us up since it got dark. From Gannet it was a game of boat speed vs. tide. We placed ourselves close to the Waiheke shore as high tide was at 10:49pm. We were aware of the strong tide near the north western point of Waiheke, but we decided it was better to sail through this, rather than push a lower current for a much greater time offshore.

EXPEDITION provided us with some great incite for the next section of the race. We crossed the Motuhine Channel and worked up the Motutapu shore. Using the track of our speed and course over the ground and our boat speed and heading, we were able to establish how far away from the shore we could sail before being affected by the tide. Using the GPS location, GPS error and the depth sensor we were able to work out how close we could go to the shore. Rob really is outstanding in these situations, keen to tack as many times as needed! Once we passed Emu Rock, we followed the Rangi shore, sailing just outside of Illiomana, until we got to Rangi Wharf, then crossed to the tidal relief at Bastion Reef, rounded Bean Rock. And finished 3:30 am, first on line and PHRF.

We were both pretty shattered, I was cold, which was a little upsetting as I had been on a "campaign" to keep warm.

Simrad 60

New Expedition mainsail! 

Report to come on Monday! Sorry I am sleepy.

RESULT:

finished ! *only 28 boats out of 168 entires did*

1st on line
1st on PHRF 

 See full results

EXCELLENT NEWS
My dear friend and fitness guru Sara Winther had sucess overnight being the best placed New Zealander at the Weymouth Sail for Gold  (the pre pre olympics). Awesome work Sar! 

Windy with RAIN

Predict Wind 8km model output for “start time” Saturday 09:00

I think I might be investigating if Mike Pasco at NZSailing.net has any of his nice polar fleece waterproof beanies available.

Big Day!

Happy Birthday Rob!

For me the big day is collecting a new (to us) Dell 1503FP 15 inch monitor brought from Trade Me. This particular model manufactured in around 2003 – 2005 is awesome as it has a switching 12 V power supply. Batteries on boats nominally give out power at 12V, but it really ranges from 11 to 13 V. Many monitors and other equipment that have 12V adapter for mains power simply do not run unless the power is bang on 12 V.

So if you are in the market for a monitor for your boat see if you can find a Dell 1503 FP, we now have two, costing $87 for the pair!

Windy ? When and how much ?

One of the great things about downloading weather grib files rather than images, is the ability to drill down through the data. ExpeditionLT (downloadable from http://www.iexpedition.org/downloads.html) enables gribs to be viewed, but also the information from a point can be viewed as a time series.

Global Forecast System – NOAA – time series for Auckland

 

Predict Wind 100km resolution – time series for Auckland

 

Summary: it still looks wind for the weekend, great that we currently have a No 3 jib on the floor at Windward Sails. This is almost as exciting as the main – filling the gap in our sail wardrobe between 25 knot and storm jib.

Weekend Weather – Saturday 14th

 

Saturday August 14 @ 9am - GFS global data displayed on - EXPEDITION LITE - free grib viewer (http://www.iexpedition.org/downloads.html)

Well if you are to believe the weather models we may have wind for the weekend! A high is suppose to cross NZ on Thursday, to lie east of NZ on Saturday, while a low is suppose to develop in the Tasman Sea.

Cake Day

In the days of old … like the 1960’s and maybe 1970’s when some Auckland yacht clubs only let women be associate members, and therefore they were not allowed to skipper boats, or come into the club, there were Cake days. Ladies were allowed to come out on race boats on specific days for a sail and a picnic, which included cake.

Yesterday we had a cake day on Coppelia, Jenny made some superb cupcakes, while my Neil provided lite entertainment.

As well as enjoying tasty treats, Sundays’ sail gave us a chance to see our new main sailing. My excitement of last week was well placed, as the shape, fabric and look of the new sail, all lived up to my expectations.

We sailed out of Gulf Harbour, hoisted the main then pulled in each of the reefs to see what the sail looked like. Next Rob climbed to the spreaders and marked their position on the sail as each reef were removed. This will enable us to put chaff patches on the sail at these points.

I did take some photos, but sadly left my camera on the boat, so sadly you will have to wait till later in the week to see how beautiful it is…

Boost

Our beloved mainsail – Rikoriko Cave Poor Knights.

This week I think sees the start of our campaign proper, in just a few hours I will be off to pick up a new main sail for the boat. A new main is such an important asset to us our campaign, we have been solidering on with a sail that Rob sailed to Fiji with in 1997 and has seen literally 20 000nm of sailing, much of it short handed or offshore. 

The new main has been hand crafted at Windward Sails. Sails even in the biggest lofts still have a considerable “human in the loop” component, and are individualised to the boat and the type of sailing that it is going to be used for. Together with our sail maker we have worked towards a specialised sail for two handed sailing, where the boat is often over powered.

I have to say I am super excited about the main, not only because of the huge relief of having a sail that we can rely on but also because of the crisp EXPEDITION  logo that dominates the bottom of the sail, beautifully hand crafted by Chris Field of Field Signs.

Just a massive all round boost for Rob and I.

Two weeks to go to the second SIMRAD

Two weeks and we race again. A little boat work has been done this weekend, Rob is working on finishing his boat building, making all the cupboard doors in the galley fit. I have been making the proto bean bags into signed off production models and making the final touches to the electronics.

The second of the SIMRAD B & G series is on Saturday August 14th. For the shorthaul boats (ones with a PHRF handicap less than 0.8) the course starts at Orakei Wharf, rounding Navy buoy between Whangaparoa and Tiri, then Gannet Rock, before finishing at Orakei. A total distance of 42 nm, a total time, well that is weather dependent.

You can follow our race progress on this website again, using our twitter updates on the left hand side of the page or by opening the AIS page and looking around for symbol - (Coppelia) on the map.