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 Ohope Beach Sand Sailors |
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With murimud postponed until the weekend of the Sept 9th (more details soon), and the Ohope boys keen to go for a blast. We decided to wait until Sunday and head down to Ohope for a storm sail.
I awoke 4am Sunday the a 40 knot Gail. With the yacht already loaded on the roof and ready to go, I played on the computer until 6.30am and hit the road for Ohope. A couple of times across the Tauranga causeways I thought the yacht was going to tear off the roof racks with the strong wind gusts.
I rolled in the Ohope camp at 8am with Clem close behind. It was raining as expected, however the zero knots of breeze was not. With the storm blowing back in Tauranga I was still hopefully it would still arrive. I rigged while Clem shot home to pick up his big sails.
I pushed the yacht up the beach and adjusted the wheel alignment and set up for more power. This is the first time the yacht had been put together since Aussie salt lake and needs a lot more tuning to get it back into sand mode, i.e. high drag.
WE HAVE A NEW OHOPIAN! When Clem arrived back, a new gentleman from England who now lives in Tauranga turned up. He has built a brand new class 5 and will launch it next weekend? I was half an hour up the beach heading for the spit and never got to meet him, my apologises, I will have to say hi at our next session.
Around at the spit there was a 2 to 4 knot southerly blowing and there were a couple of very small areas I could sail in. 11.30am the Storm hit with a bang. I sailed back down the 10 meter wide beach with a tail wind. The tide had come in fast and I was more in the water more than the dry sand. I sailed past the camp and down a kilometre before turning and heading back up to the camp and de rigging in the raining Gail at 12oclock.
Awesome. What a day. Back on the beach.
I dropped off some sails and the club flag at Clem’s on the way home to Tauranga. I am on call next weekend and do not think I can get cover for Saturday, so have fun boys.
Until next time
Nz777 out.
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Ohope Beach Sand Sailors |
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