The 2014 Great Annual Waikato Seagull Regatta – Part2 (+ new photos)

(scroll down to the previous post to view Part1)

RACE DAY TWO
Day two greeted us with rain. The second leg of the race is a shorter but not insignificant 33Nm. We would need to pass through Meremere then Mercer and Tuakau before navigating the Mimi clad back creeks of Hoods Landing to find the finish line.  Apparently there were flags to show the correct finishing route through the willows, but we weren’t taking any chances. Out came the iPhones and on the back of some free café WiFi we soon had a selection of maps and a GPS plotter app to guide us home safe.

The second days start is a more straight forward process than the previous day at the dam. There’s only a single lane ramp at Rangariri and 40 boats to get on the river. With the whole place currently under development due to the new express way going in, the launching process was logistically challenging. Once on the water everything was as per normal. There was still a thick haze of smoke and usual noise, but today she was a straight time on distance affair, and that we thought we could manage.

Seagull starts aren’t conducted to quite the same degree of accuracy as we’re used to in the yacht racing scene. A green light comes on and stays on for a while, then an orange light flashes and when that one stops the race has started. Exactly when the orange light stops flashing is determined by when the old boy on the bank feels like turning it off. It’s pretty much a musical chairs type affair. The closest boat to the line when the light stops, pulls a glamour start. That wasn’t us this time, but our trusty seagull was on song and Paris was good for it. We were back down lying in the boat so we were soon nose in front, and focused on our mission to pull back that crucial 15 mins.

As the rain beat down on our sail cloth foredeck and the spray blew back into our stinging  eyes, we dodged sand banks, floating branches and a bloated sheep. When it’s raining hard it’s almost impossible to read the river and distinguish between safe water and the shallows. So you guess and hope for the best. We were lucky and escaped grounding. Finally some luck for the good ship Paris!

Then 2 hours into the leg, we dropped 100rpm……. James and I looked at each other and immediately knew exactly what happening. Sure enough 10 mins later we dropped another hundie and plan D was put into action. We would need to stop and do an oil refill on the gearbox. We decided that we would take advantage of the numerous duck shooting mimi’s and slide Paris out of the water for the job. Some of these mimi’s have little floating pontoons and that would do us nicely! Our well-honed Southern Spars lean manufacturing techniques now took on an all new level of appreciation and we prepared Paris for the fastest gearbox oil fill in the history of seagull racing.

We spied a suitable pontoon and prepared to dock. As we drew closer we realised the shooters had put nails all around the edges to stop the shags getting up and crapping on the pontoon. Paris isn’t the most durable craft and this was not good at all! But we were committed to this pontoon and the clock was ticking. We came along side and stepped out. Lifting the bow over the pontoon, we then rested her gently on the nails and took a side each to get her all the way up. There was cracking of carbon fibre and a couple of slightly higher nails broke through Paris’s delicate outside skin and into her soft foam core. James being the highly attentive designer type wasn’t happy about this at all and voiced his feelings about how rough he thought I was and how we had enough problems without puncturing holes in the boat! But we had an oil change to do so I told him it would be sweet and that a couple of small holes wouldn’t be the end of the world. He could put his fingers over them if he was that worried about it!

4 mins later we raked Paris back over the nails and with a single pull of our trusty seagull starting cord we were on our way at a never before seen 5100rpm! It was like the seagull was thanking us for looking after her, and at last we felt like we were at one with our machinery. We were true seagull racers at last! As the rain beat down on our shivering and hungry hides we blasted down back estuaries with GPS guided precision on our way to the finish. We crossed the line in an elapsed time of 3h 25m. Now the waiting game began…….

10 minutes passed and still no sign of the second placed seadog. 15 mins ticked over……! Then half an hour…. Only then did we hear that all familiar sound of the screaming seagull. Through the willows came the best of the rest. Our places in seagull racing history were secured! At last James and I were the new International Bermudian Seagull champions!  We’ve suffered through a lot for this moment and when that trophy was safely in our possession we immediately took photos on our iPhones, appropriately tagged the relevant parties and put them on facebook for the entire world to see.  We won two seagull caps and two seagull hat pins for our steely first days determination and solid second days’ performance. It was worth it. We were seadogs at last!

There is a movie  in the pipeline, when its released I’ll let you all know, it will be a cracker – Alan H