Waitara Regatta - Report
Paul Moriarty
2024 Waitara Regatta Report– ‘Ain't no sunshine..it's not warm'
As the event loomed nearer and nearer the forecast seem to get worse and worse.. luckily it couldn’t get any more worse as the weekend had arrived!
On Friday the weather gods lured us into a false sense of security as we rigged the 3.7’s on a balmy summer evening.
The travellers are either bad-ass hard core sailors or... they forgot to check the forecast. Considering the first travellers to arrive sail 3.7’s in Wellington ‑ Ruth and James Swinney - they definitely fall into the bad-ass category, and since the other travellers - Lucia and Werner - have sailed around the world they definitely fall into the hard-core category.
A feed of whitebait was devoured and the forecast of 20-30knts was studied over seven different sources. With the equation of minus 5knots wind strength for sailing on a sheltered river, the results looked in the realm of possible.
Saturday morning it was breeze on, and to make matters worse - rain. Now I don’t mind sailing in the rain but rigging up is rather miserable.
It was decided that we would at least try and get one race underway before the wind continued to build. So putting on our harnesses and some of us a (fake) smile, launching commenced. The good thing about having teenagers in the 3.7 fleet is that they have naïve enthusiasm a plenty. They are also very useful as cannon fodder.
Alex #330 was first off the ramp, he got out to the river, flipped a few times and managed to get back to the ramp before a few of us had even launched.
Lucia and Ruth took note, and out of respect for this brave young soldier, thought it wise to remain on land.
Next to drop was Stuart Julian who - showing a lot of potential - broke his tiller extension universal joint on the first tack off the start line.
James Swinney actually looked like he was having fun until he washed up on the rocks.
Although most of us were in survival sailing mode, things escalated at the top mark rounding - Ethan yelling at Joe to keep clear, Joe trying his best to avoid, whilst body dragging through the water, feet not connected to the boat.
This was starting to look like a good race between these two fierce rivals until unfortunately Ethan was forced to retire with a broken kicker.
After a pep talk and a reef in her sail Emily was the only female brave (or stupid) enough to sail the 3.7. Although she capsized aplenty she had completed her first lap of the course and thought it a good idea to find the same rocks James had enjoyed.
Paul lead the race to finish 1st, Joe 2nd and the Hamilton hero Wener in 3rd.
It was an eventful morning with lots of battle scars and stories to tell after the northerly winds came racing off the ocean, straight up the river combining wild and frequent changes of direction with strength variation and sudden gusts up to 36 knots.
In total, 29 of the 35 regatta entrants launched into the river to sail... 17 of the brave 29, either didn't reach the start-line, or started but didn't finish the race. There was to be only the one race, as the Race Officer abandoned the day's sailing when he looked out across the river from his tower and saw more boats on-shore, against the rocky bank, or upside-down, than actually sailing.
Paul who hadn’t put a foot wrong in the race was seen to be ‘showing off’ after the racing reaching across the river and gybing meters away from the rocks. Mis-timed a gybe, was too slow to right his boat and got the mast well and truly stuck in the mud. He was the last boat home rescued by the patrol boat tail between his legs. Only to make matters worse it was caught on film.
Day two
I mentioned sailing in the rain was ok but sailing in the rain.. with no wind is more than rather miserable.
Wind speed 0-3 kts, River current and tide 4+ kts. Interesting.
The breeze was fickle but the start gun went, with the full fleet of ten 3.7s on the start line. It was a SailGP style reaching start line/first leg. Everyone was super focussed on their angles and boat speed, until we all slowly started to realise that we were not moving very fast, in fact we were all slowly drifting backwards, up the river, on the incoming tide.
Lucia, who had hugged the calmer waters by the river bank, had made the most ground, and seemed to be immune to the tidal surge. The rest of the fleet was rather depressed that the drifting took them all the way back over the start line. It turned out that Lucia had found an innovative tactical move – snagging her centreboard on a sunken log in the river bank… this turned out to be the fastest point of sail!
The race continued, but was ultimately abandoned when it looked like the majority of the fleet was about to be sucked out of the river mouth and out to sea.
Back to the shore for lunch, hot drinks, and shelter from the rain.
The wind forecast wasn’t looking promising, but still had the Hundred Dollar race to be run! (and we needed three races to complete a series).
So out we went again.
The wind wasn’t much better than the morning but we were possibly helped by a bit of current relief from the slack water at high tide.
Race 2 of the day, this race was Werner’s time to shine. He had the lead, and was looking untouchable, until he parked it in the Pohutakawa trees and let Paul and Joe slip by.
Race 3 – the Hundred-Dollar Race. With the conditions as they were, this really could have been anyone’s race. Eyes were on the prize as we all took off from the start line, no-one had any regard for rules anymore, it was winner takes all, and elbows were swinging.
The first mark rounding resulted in a 10-boat wide bouy room chaos. By mark two, Joe had the lead with Ethan hot on his tail. But with the remainder of the regatta fleet to sail through, and the river current to contend with, the race wasn’t over yet. Ruth obviously wanted that $100 for petrol money to get home, and she made a great shot for taking the lead. But it was slippery Paul who found a passing lane and snuck through to take it in the end.
When attending a regatta, we’re all hoping for champagne sailing, but the only champagne sailing at this regatta was the budget brand imitation-champagne spraying at the presentation of the hundred-dollar oversized cheque. And this about sums it up.
