Tallships

We stayed a couple of extra days in Russell so we could sail the Tallships race. We went out in Breeze and despite motoring over the start, not making the topmark, not going around the next buoy and not quite the crossing the finish line (if they’d just moved it a few hundred metres…) we had a great if exhausting day and achieved what we’d set out to – which was to provide a spectacle with Soren, SoNZ and Tucker. It would be nice one year if a course was set that the Square-riggers could actually sail! Tori then sailed back to Auckland on Breeze while Jim drove the car back. On Breeze we had a motorsail and then a sloppy sail in the 2m swell to Whangaruru (after we had replaced the fuses in the engine). The next day a few of us got up at the crack of dawn and motored out of the harbour. The wind picked up around nine o’clock at Tutukaka and the rest of the crew were roused to set sail. With all sail set we were doing 7 or 8 knots and overtook a yacht under spinnaker! All in all a great sail to Kawau where we anchored off Coppermine for the night. We had a light wind sail back to Auckland the next day. Approaching Auckland we were circled by some maniac driving a large black Barquentine!

The photo of Breeze complete with battle flag reproduced without permission from Will Calver, Ocean Photography.