Leg 1 report
Our eight boats started in a very light Southerly on Friday afternoon, which meant a long drift out of Wellington harbour. Satellite Spy unfortunately caught an island of weed around their keel at the start, which slowed them considerably. After their dedicated crew took a quick swim to remove the weed, their performance improved greatly.
The Guarantee had a great start, leading the whole fleet as they passed Point Halswell and again further out. But the green machine wasabi managed to get on the right side of the ferry at Barrett’s Reef to lay through and head off into the Strait. By the first report in Wasabi was a mile in front of Satellite Spy and they held the lead for the rest of the leg.
The first night at sea was light and flukey after a brilliant sunset and the fleet made their way down the coast, encountering breaching whales, dolphins and mollyhawks. The breeze came and went, with a light northerly building for the first morning at sea.
The race management team raced the fleet down to Akaroa and arrived in plenty of time for the first boats. Wasabi and Satellite Spy both experienced a bit of a pounding at Akaroa Heads but made it up the harbour to the finish line, Wasabi finishing on dark at 2033 hours Saturday and Satellite Spy ghosting in before midnight at 2333 hours.
In the two handed fleet High Voltage went out to sea off Kaikoura, Distraction sneaked through on the inside and Kokomea made a late run into the Heads. The Guarantee took out line honours finishing at 0437 Sunday, with Distraction only an hour and 20 minutes behind them.
As the day heated up in Akaroa, Arbitare sat in a hole, watching the fleet sail away from them.