Originally sent by: Russell
                        

                        Fine weather, gently winds, nice and warm. That was last week. For the Teams Racing Event we had rain, not much wind to start but rising
during the day. In fact the prediction was for about 35 knts and I was thinking, "too much wind" for park sailing and was looking at grass courses. We postponed the first race for 90 minutes until a steady
wind came in and altered the course so we didn't round the top mark which was in a bit of a wind shadow from the netball building. Of
course once I had called the change more wind came in. Murphy's law!
We had closed off the park's main gate to stop traffic for the day so had a bigger choice of courses to use.
Later on I tried the grass but at this stage we had so much surface water couldn't make much progress. A slight wind change meant the
"round the mountain" course didn't really work although we tried it.
The wind settled in about 15 – 18 knts which meant everyone sailed 4 metre sails with a couple changing late in the day as it puffed up a
bit for about 30 minutes. 2 teams from Bay of Plenty, 1 team from the Waikato and 4 from Auckland entered and each sailed against every
other team in a 7–8 minute race. 1 minute starts kept everyone on
their toes, thanks to Nicholas for doing this job.
Lots of action on the course, especially at the gybe mark at the top
car park and then trying to get from the road back into the big car
park to go through the start finish line. Tacking through here at
speed with some wet grass on either side and a bit of loose metal
meant that lots ended up well out on the grass struggling to get back
on the race track. Funny to watch not so funny for the karter who invariably lost places.
The racing was close. First over the line didn't mean your team won
the race as it was the first 3 team members cumulative placings that indicated a win or not. Slowing an opposition down to let one of your team past was one of the tactics used. At the end of the round robin
no one had won all matches but Auckland RATTs and BoP Black both had
on 1 loss apiece and sailed off best of 3 for top placings. Auckland Nutrigrains and Waikato Warriors sailed best of 3 for 3rd and 4th. eMotions, BoP Pink, and Team Grunta sailed for 5th, 6th and 7th.
Team RATT from Auckland ended up just pipping the BoP team in the
race for the trophy while Waikato won their match in the 3rd race to take the final podium place.
A good result to have the 3 areas all finish in the top 3 but
especially pleasing (from my point of view) that the great trophy donated by Ray stays in Auckland for the next few months until the
next event is organised. Auckland will now host the next event.
Thanks to Rosie and Lu for their efforts in scoring and keeping everything ticking over. Lucky we had the tent eh?? The barbeque was popular with over 100 sausages onions and bread going out over the
day, didn't get to eat the pineapple and watermelon but managed to
give away Easter eggs and Moro bars at the end.
Thanks to those who turned up and raced even though we had a bit of
wet stuff. Nice that the weather cleared about 4.30 as everyone was heading off home!
Looking forward to the next event.

Russell
                        
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