So we had the last Kingfisher night race for the year on Saturday night, about 25 boats, 34nm and a steady Northerly 14-15 knots of breeze.
This course was clockwise and roughly triangular. You start inside of Mud Island, a 2nm dig to the NW for a starboard rounding before hardening up to a 10nm beat, crossing the shipping channel and continuing north to take the Brisbane Roads mark to port, the idea being to focus all the boats crossing the channel into a single lane. From there its close hauled to the NW to the top of the Redcliffe Peninsula, then a 15nm beam reach out to Moreton Island, crossing the shipping channel again. After getting to the island and a starboard rounding, it's a deep 8nm run back to the bottom of Mud Island. Drop the kite, and harden up for a 2nm mad dash back to the finish line.
It's a great course for night racing as the fleet doesn't cross itself like you would in say a windward/leeward course. It's also a popular race for a lot of boats training for the Brisbane to Gladstone, as you have compulsory radio skeds, commercial shipping lanes and the majority of the race being at night for the middle of the fleet.
Below is a pic of a new boat in the fleet, a 2010 Humphries 54' called Active Again that looks like a ruggedized version of a TP52. She's fast, and will make a worthy competitor for our normal line honours boat Kerumba, a very well sailed Kerr 50. We're lucky in having a good cross section of boats ranging from 30-50' and the crews all know their boats, so we were looking forward to another tight, hard fought race.
The first leg was a shy reach, and we nailed a perfect ToD start at the pin end, then groans abound as a general recall is announced, half the fleet were over in the strong ebb tide pulling us North. The re-start was thankfully a carbon copy, crossing the pin seconds after the gun in clear air. I have a rule now, always start under headsail, even if the wind is behind the mast, it's way too easy for things to go wrong with a kite up with boats jockeying for position at a start line. So, after a few minutes to let the fleet settle and check the wind is still near 90 TWA, we unfurled the gennaker, the boat breaks onto the plane and we're sneaking over the top of the boats to leeward that started at the boat end of the line before they get a chance to luff us up. All good so far.
Then we lost a winch handle over the side. Bugger, we're down to one winch handle for the entire race with the third one having been broken and not replaced yet. It's only really an issue for the downwind legs, where you want a handle for the mainsheet and kite winches, but it makes the hoists a tad more difficult also. We'll just have to make do.
Arriving at the mark to cross the shipping channel, we unfurled the headsail and furled the genenaker away cleanly, before hardening up for the beat. I only wanted a short beat before tacking out to the East back into the shipping channel to take advantage of the ebbing tide. A glance over the shoulder put paid to that idea, an outbound cruise ship forcing us meekly into some short tacks outside the channel as they trundled by. The yachts made quite a picture scattering every which way to stay out of their way!
The beat up to the top mark found us turning in 5th or 6th, and I called for the gennaker for the long reach out to the islands. We hoisted cleanly and went to deploy when disaster struck. The furling line somehow managed to wrap itself around the kite as we unfurled, the result being the top half of the kite was completely unfurled as the bottom half trussed itself up like a roast chicken. I still don't know how it happened, but there was a good 30 wraps of the furling line around the bottom 10ft of the sail.
Oh no.
The foredeck crew spring into action, grabbing a boat hook they laboriously tried to slowly unwrap the furling line wrap by wrap as the top half of the sail tried its level best to flog itself to pieces. An interminable 20 mins went by as we slowly fell away from the course line, a call goes forward and the reply is bad news, over half the wraps still remained. The foredeck crew were exhausted, so I said a silent prayer and called for the pole to be retracted. This is not a good idea. As you retract the pole, the bobstay will naturally go slack, and with a flogging kite still connected on the pointy end, you're just asking for the 4" 2m long bit of carbon to tear itself in half at the deck clamp. We ran deep and released the pole, and mercy to the gods, it all worked perfectly. We got the kite on the deck and the foredeck crew collapse on the rail, looking like they'd just run a marathon. We point back to the Moreton Island mark, now upwind and sort out the mess, trying to catch the fleet, who the whole time would have had grandstand seats of us disappearing out of control into the distance
!
The gods decided they'd had their fun and went to pick on someone else for a while, so by the time we turned at Moreton Island we were back in the hunt, turning in fourth place but with the fleet snapping at our heels to a gorgeous sunset. This is Dream right behind us, an Inglis 38 that is always sailed really well, just before the turning mark.
I checked the wind, a steady 12-4 knots, and looked around the horizon, it looked like a normal sea breeze that was lightening out. The wind was about 150TWA and easing, so I called for our big A2, a light air deep running kite, it was nice to have a race where you're not running dead square for once! We got a clean hoist and there's some urgency now in our set, you can hear the yelling and kites snapping taut behind us as the horde descend and round behind us. The boat's occasionally making ground in the flat water as the wind gusts past 14 and we break into a plane, then falling off as the wind lulls and the fleet surge back. There's no moon yet, and eyes strain in the darkness trying to see the trim, the occasional torch light appearing on the sail showing the nerves whenever another boat surges forward a length.
The run back was pretty uneventful until we neared Mud Island, when I see the silhouette of a Beneteau 47.7 ahead and to windward suddenly broach wildly. ???
It's been a steady breeze all evening with no hint of gusts, but the benny is head to wind, kite flogging, so we get ready just in case. We hit the invisible pressure line and the wind climbs straight up to 20 knots, which is the upper threshold for the big kite. It needs to come down, right now, or we'll blow it to pieces. I went to open my mouth when Dream, who was to leeward and on our beam appears to broach hard. I think I hear their kite come apart, flapping madly (it did).
A quick yell goes to the helm and we soak deep to ease the pressure, the wind bounces to a steady 25 knots and the boat just takes off, pegging 17 knots as it charges away, the big 200m2 kite now well over its wind range. The flat water meant the kite wasn't flogging and the boat speed was high which is probably what saved it, but we managed to get it down cleanly just in time for the turn under Mud Island for the 2nm charge to the finish. We crossed the finish line side by side with the Beneteau 47.7 who pipped us by a a bowpsrit length for a 4th on line honours, and the crew erupt, it was a race of problems that we had to manage, and we still finished respectably.
I'd like to give the original organisers of this series some credit, it is always fantastic racing ,with the night time format adding some spice to the team work, and the once a month formula means the crew can easily factor it in to their busy lives. A thanks always to the four organizing clubs and all the volunteers hard work, I'm already impatient for next years series to start....
Strathgordon.
