Rosemount and the land of the long white cloud

by Crosbie Lorimer on 20 Apr 2001 Kiwis do very strange things to the letter 'i'

So, we should hardly have been surprised that the language barrier might prove an issue between the five Aussies who normally race on the Farr 40 Syntegra Rapscallion and Kiwi Brett Neill and his three colleagues who'd chartered the boat for the Rosemount Regatta.

'Trum' barked Ryan, the Kiwi trimmer as the head of the spinnaker hit the sheaves on our first afternoon's training….'Trum' he repeated irritably as nothing happened. Our mainsail trimmer Brad nudged Dick (the boat's owner) standing at the kite sheet winch, provided him with a soto voce translation and the gears whirred suddenly into action.

As the afternoon wore on the Aussies began to get the hang of it and before long the mysteries of 'spunnaker', 'jub' and 'kucker trumming' presented few problems to Trans Tasman crew as we headed back into 'Puttwater' on an idyllic autumn evening.

And so to a three day inshore and offshore regatta where light winds or no wind at all did more to test the patience and guile of the crews of eleven Farr 40s than it did their crew work. A regatta too where I was under clear instructions from my disgruntled 'mentor' bowgirl Rachael (still recovering from some frightening road rage injuries) not to enjoy myself too much in her absence. To his credit too her replacement Brett would do his best not to show how much fun he was having either.

Day one started with a short delay with the race committee waiting for an oscillating southeast breeze to settle in. In winds that ranged from 5-14 knots and irregularly wound through 20 degrees Marcus Blackmore's Emotional Hooligan gave notice of intent with a 4,1 and 1 for the first day's racing. Warren Weickmann's Leroy Brown also gave early warning that he proposed to give this regatta a good shake with a 1,3 and 3. As to the ANZAS crew, well we showed early promise that was not to be fullfilled as the day wore on, coming off the worse for some tricky shifts and some creative rule breaking with results of 3,5 and 8.

Race two was our nemesis as Dean, our Kiwi Tactician (no, not that Dean, but he's match raced a few of his ilk), kept up the Syntegra tradition of occupying the on-water umpires on three occasions! Over the line at the start the rules gave us an option of a 360 which we took and executed rapidly with a loss of a place or two. On the second leeward mark we decided we had an inside berth on the hapless Truant and persisted to enforce it. Much flag waving and whistles made it apparent that the umpires considered we'd pushed our luck, so there went another rapid 360. With the afterguard still arguing on board as to the merits of our case the umpires' chase boat raced alongside and demanded we do another pirouette for 'unfair sailing'……gasps of indignation and Hake-like stares were met with an unmoving demand to see another donut.

Despite that all we still managed a 5th place, which suggests that in our case 'unfair sailing' means we're way too fast at circlework and did not incur enough of a penalty. Our headsail trimmer Clogs warned us that if we weren't careful our reputation and experience in 360s would earn a Special Appendix to the class rules requiring a 2 for 1 for Syntegra next year! Certainly the umpires seemed delighted with our singular ability to provide them with a reason to be out there and they approached us with broad grins and eager explanations at the bar afterwards.

Anyway, who could really complain, the weather was glorious and the racing as close as ever off the beautiful shores of what us Northern Beaches folk know as 'God's Country'; and besides we were holding a pleasing, if rather precarious 4th place overall behind Emotional Hooligan, Leroy Brown and Corinthian Doors.

Day 2 struggled to get started at all as we sat for hours two miles off Barrenjoey Head, watching our instruments struggle to find more than 3 knots from any direction at all. As we spotted the local club race fleet drift slowly northwards hugging the coast our amused attention turned to a short odds betting game on a red kited boat slowly heading our way. They seemed determined to hold the same gybe for fear of collapsing the kite, whilst heading slowly away from the mark for more than an hour. We never settled the bet as to when if ever they would gybe because the wind started filling in and we turned to race mode (amazingly it turned out that the red kite won its class!).

As a gentle breeze rose from offshore we lined up for the start at the boat end. A perfect start denied by a general recall, was followed by an exact repeat scenario. What chance that we could repeat the position for a third start? Murphy's Law; we got boxed out at the committee boat on the third attempt and circled to start last! Some good calling on the windshifts got us up to a very close finish optimistically calling Fruit Machine for buoy room through the finish line and just dipping too slowly to catch Sharp One Step Ahead. With a very ordinary eighth place on the second and final race of the day we'd slipped to sixth overall and we'd be needing a glamour day on the inshore races on Sunday if the Trans Tasman crew were to make a showing.

You wouldn't normally credit a children's movie like Mary Poppins as being motivational, but it seemed to do the trick for our Kiwi colleagues. Having worn out the Northern Beaches nightlife on the Friday night, Brett, Porky Ryan, Pete and Dean were looking bright and breezy on a wet and windless Sunday morning openly admitting that they'd headed home early on the Saturday night and had canned the James Bond movie in favour of Mary Poppins!

Whatever the cause the results were Supercalufragulustuc! After a long rainfilled delay, waiting at the club for breeze to fill in, the fleet motored the short distance down Pittwater to the racing circuit off Towlers Bay and paraded in front of a small and sodden spectator fleet. This was our day; on a short course with a damp nor/nor'easter we pulled off a clever boat end start and stayed with the lead group to the top mark, rounding neatly on the bottom mark to hold third. The final beat kept us in that slot only letting Emotional Hooligan through on the last downwind leg (they always seem to sail 10 degrees lower than everyone else) to put us in fourth place with Bruce Taylor steering Steve Ellis's Buon Giorno into second and Leroy Brown taking the gun.

The penultimate race was indeed the elusive glamour result we'd sought. Starting in the boat end windward slot, tactician Dean picked every windshift to perfection as we drew a short lead at the first mark. A great drop at the leeward mark and we began to pull out more distance on the next windward leg, finishing downwind well ahead of Smile, Corinthian Doors and Emotional Hooligan. I suspect the smell of gunsmoke at the finish may have caused owner Dick to start relegating the demands of the bank to the back of his mind again and I swear I heard Pitman Pete the big Kiwi cheerfully humming 'Chum chumeny, chum chumeny…..' as we flaked the headsail ready for the last start.

So to the final sprint, if you could call it that in a dying 6 knots late in a damp afternoon. One windward/leeward to the gun saw us to another great start and jockeying for position to catch the best of the breeze up the windward leg. As we rounded second on the tail of Leroy Brown this was not the time for me to screw up the kite hoist and it hit the blocks perfectly as we rounded. But a small tear which Clogs (Contender Sailcloth guru) guaranteed would not worsen still had bowman Brett racing for a replacement kite 'just in case'. The guarantee held and despite hanging on to the coat tails of Leroy Brown we couldn't pass her and she took the gun. The improving Truant took third and Emotional Hooligan, playing an amazing get-out-of jail card from an awful start, finished fourth to win the Rosemount Trophy from runner-up Leroy Brown.

And