First Race - Sorta

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First Race

So this weekend was the first race, sorta. I was told I was going to be in it but then I arrived to find out I had been taken out of the boat. There’s been trouble getting everyone to show up for practice so they combined the men’s and women’s novice. I was pretty frustrated because I’ve been there trying everyday. I’ll put up a post in a day or two but this has been a really frustrating bit: getting a seat in the boat.

My consolation prize was that I saved $5 (would have preferred to spend) but I got to ride in the support boat and get some sweet pictures (somewhat worth it). The following are the pictures from it. I got some ok video of them going round the turn but that’s not going online until I get a better connection. I was also reminded how hard photography/video recording is in rolling swells. Our boats did fairly well, our novice won handily, our women took 2nd and 3rd, our men took 2nd and our juniors took 3rd in the same men’s race.

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Photos

Go!
So this is the start of the novice race, mixed but mostly women. This is the Te Tupu Novice Women's boat (I think) aka Boiler Boyz (a steamship wrecked on the reef leaving only a boiler that marks our harbor). This is just going off a small swell, imagine the stresses when it actually gets rough out. Trader Jacks is just above the tip of the bow with white roof, the courthouse has the teal roof next to it. The object far right middle blocking the shore is the boiler, right above someone's hand...

Paddle Hand Off
This my team's boat, Ngakau Toa. Dave, my host, is sitting two seat. As you may notice, 5 doesn't have a paddle. The steerer dropped hers so 5 handed one back, we - in the chase boat - are returning the paddle (they probably should have had a spare).

Post Hand Off
This is the novice boat a few strokes after we got the paddle handed off, decent shot looking down the boat.

Getting Gone
Getting ready for the Men's race, juniors included. As you can see the boats have skirts which cover the open deck, preventing too much water from getting in. Spent an afternoon scrubbing those / de-anting them...

The Juniors
Ngakau Toa Juniors on the warmup. They did very well at a race in Australia before I arrived. My opinion they're a little on and off, they mostly have to get their act together; they rarely have a full crew and the following weekend made it evident they were a little outta shape. They are on the warmup but evidentally having your head out of the boat isn't as much of a crime as it is in crew...

Men's Start
Start of the men's race, you can see that boiler a bit better in this one. The starts are pretty unofficial as far as getting people in line, probably easy to have a half boat lead. But this wasn't too official of a race anyways.

The Turn
Turn of the Men's race (all races were stake races). Pretty crucial part of the race plus, at this point, the top four crews were pretty close together. A little hard to see but the two bowmen are drawing to bring the bow around. There was a 5th crew that was a little frustrating and shouldn't have been in this race, they were so far behind. Evidentially they want to put in a bid for a big race too, won't happen if they keep that up. This crew did well though...

In the Sunlight
Me being a little artsy, thought this was a cool shot. Plus, I don't have to write a huge blurb...

Sunset
Sunset from Trader Jacks. Afterwards we hung out for a very long time, one drink became one more for a long time, I got a little annoyed because I hadn't gotten a shower yet and was covered in seawater (Dave had run home and was now enjoying himself). One cool thing was the kitchen screwed up and we got someone else's food for free (they got their food too, kitchen tried to make us pay but we pointed out we insisted it wasn't ours)...

After Party
How does it go, Work hard Play hard? Anyways, the afterparty went late into the night. Eventually we moved on from Trader Jacks and had a party in the parking lot! It was pretty cool but I was getting a little tired...

Comments

[brit]

ahhhh, amazing!
looks sweet krauss! hope you're enjoying the beaches... please swim in those perfect coves for me! (haha bet you do all the time) good luck!