Blink went out for her maiden voyage last night - light air, never much more than 6 knots and averaging 3-5 with large patches of glassy water. We still dont have everything finished, so were a little limited for cant angle, a few temporary rigging solutions, and sails on their first hoist with a couple of small refinements possibly needed once we adjust the mast rake slightly.
With the masthead Code 0 at about 90 TWA, we were doing about 8 knots over ground (instruments not calibrated yet). Upwind about 7 kts SOG but at a fairly wide sheeting angle (inboard tweaker not set up yet).
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Blink got the gun. First on line. Well done boys. Followed by Bushido. Awesome race with lots of sparring between them.
Cooked breakfast awaits at the club. Thanks also to the awesome SSANZ team who have had little sleep and are seeing all the boats in and all the local support. Fantastic!
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RPNYC ran its two handed series today - a 17 miler around the cans in Wellington Harbour. Forecast was dubiously big from the Metservice and didnt align with Windfinder, Windguru, Metvuw etc. Started off with gentle zephyrs and blew 20s for some of the course.
We learnt the boat really fast today, including deploying the code zero, having a couple of great upwind legs, and using the A6 for a speedie run past Somes Island to Days Bay. On the way back past Somes Island, the breeze had built and we tucked in a reef. Lesson number 1 - dont assume the reef line has been run and check it at the dock! Running a reef line took ages and cost us speed and distance on the fleet. A good reach home and to our relief, we didnt embarrass ourselves by not coming first across the line.
Next challenge was pulling down that huge main two handed while it was blowing pretty hard by then and the gusts in the inner harbour were not helpful.
A great first sail - lots to learn. She is a dream to drive and well behaved. We didnt make her go as fast as she is used to fully crewed but we held a steady course to have a great day on the water in decent breeze. She is running beautifully - canting properly and easily from the wheels. Some two handed systems to sort out but that is easy.
Great first two handed day out - many more to come!
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This is a highly attractive ‘pocket rocket’, a term used by Yachtsnet in their data section. (See first link below.) If one is looking for a boat with exciting performance and at the same time the ability to coastal cruise, this little job may be the answer.
A lot of thought has gone into making her a practical yacht in terms of ergonomics, i.e., her efficient functional properties. She has slab reefing for the mainsail and a furling, non-overlapping jib for easy tacking and control of sail area. With a fantastic ballast ratio and a deep keel providing lateral and directional stability, she should make to windward better than many yachts of her size. She has the added advantage of being able to dry out level on her raised keel and dual rudders. Dual transom hung rudders allow for the placing of an outboard motor on the centreline where it is most efficient and it can be used on both tacks when motor-sailing - though I doubt this situation will be required, except under special circumstances.
She is a highly practical small yacht for a crew of two, each of whom can sleep in the main cabin on berths either side, that extend into the quarters. There’s room for two children up forward in a double ‘v’ berth. Not everyone will like the chemical toilet under the companionway step, but there it is easily accessed, unlike many small yachts that have their chemical loos tucked away under the forward ‘v’ berth. The self-draining cockpit has sensible seating with good back support and lockers underneath for warps, fenders, etc.
Links
Beneteau First 211 Yachtsnet Archive Details (Excellent Photos)
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Race 1 (actually race 2 of the RPNYC spring series) was a _very_ short windward-leeward, wouldnt have been a long Optimist dingy course. At that time we still had a keel controller that occasionally misbehaved and a battery management system that was behaving erratically sometimes. Our first tack with a temporarily bewildered keel controller took us down to 2 knots for about 30 seconds ( just slightly below our estimated polar of 8.3-ish!), followed shortly after by the lovely opportunity to dip the whole Div1 fleet. We gybe-set, and then the downwind run and the next upwind beat were uneventful, but with the short course we were quick enough back upwind that we re-rounded the top mark with the kite still being packed. Not fast. We ended up 4th on line, but predictably last on handicap.
Race 2 for us was a far-more-suitable harbour course, which included the most amusing part of the day. After the first upwind mark (Ngauranga) on the way towards the harbour entrance … we rounded and put up the A2 in light air which gradually built, started having trouble keeping ahead of Wedgetail, even thought they might roll us at one point and wondering if we would clear the other end of Kau bay without having to drop the kite. This went on for almost 1/3 of the leg, until the eureka moment when we remembered we had a canting keel. Once we put that out to windward we were much faster (!), steering was much easier and height wasnt a problem any more. Even better we found that could hold our lead on Wedgie upwind, they are a really well sailed boat that points quite high. We were first on line, first on club handicap, and 2nd on PHRF.
Race 3 last Saturday, in sunny nice if cool weather, 6-13 knot southerly. Mike Perry couldnt come out with us because he has his work-life balance all wrong, poor chap, but did pop out to the shore to take the pics (the ones from off the boat). Llewellyn from McRaes Global who had fixed a minor programming issue for the keels brain the night before came out for the race too, and took all the nice pics from on the boat. The keel behaved impeccably - and no doubt will always from here on. Not only that, but the Shaun from Tasman Auto Electric who have been helping customise the Lithionics Battery installation helped make them work nicely too. So no interesting moments from the keel or battery perspective.
In terms of our competition, wed probably have preferred more or less breeze, we werent changing gear as well as we might have, and somehow we seemed to be in the wrong part of the course too many times -- we watched other boats around us hook into spectacular lifts that we didnt see much of. Our boatspeed and angles were OK, but I suspect not as good as they are going to be once we are used to extracting full performance from Blink. Meric on Wedgetail (Welbourne 42) did a spectacular job of sailing around us on the last upwind leg, and Ran Tan II, the 50-foot Elliot canter spent most of the race ahead, so we were 3rd on line.
Im about to upload a time-lapse video of the last race. This lasts about 30 mins (I ran out of time to edit) so scrubbing/jumping through some bits probably a good idea.
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The RPNYC Island Bay Race was held on Saturday, 2nd November being an 18 or so miler. This was Blinks first opportunity to turn right out of the harbour and have a little sniff of Cook Strait following her sea trials and early races in the confines of Welly Harbour. We had gone out early with Booboo (Josh Tucker) from North Sails who had come down especially to sail with us and check our sail configuration, furlers, etc.
The start was a Mark Foy and Blink scored a fairly late start of 12.55pm with only Ran Tan and the Tri following us 5 minutes later.
The first leg was uphill to Korokoro giving us an opportunity to see what she could do in a fairly moderate breeze. She trucked her way up wind, slightly cracked off, averaging 9kts over ground
The breeze built as we rounded the Korokoro mark and a woop woop down leg followed. Initially wind was mid teens, but then started blowing about 18 to mid-20s, we hoisted the A2 and Blink took off. When you are pushing it in a gusty Wellington northerly with an A2 (200m2 of kite), you are bound to have a couple of lie downs (which we did) but she got up pretty quickly. Most interesting one was near Barretts reef, perhaps not the best place to have a nana nap.
With boat speed in the early 20s (we did 22 knots speed over ground a few times, with 2 knots of tide against us), we were sailing faster than the Bluebridge Ferry on the downhill. There were many grins all round. As we got to the Barretts reef buoy, we had a bit of trouble getting the A2 furled up and were at danger of making fast passage to Antarctica. We eventually dropped the kite conventionally and headed to the Island Bay marks.
The rest of the race was a reaching course around the mark, back to Barretts Reef buoy and trucking it up wind for a final reach home finishing at the club house. We passed enough boats and started to hunt a little pesky Shaw 650 (Magic Trick) who started earlier but just managed to beat us on line having had a glamour run, perfect conditions for them.
Blink was the fastest around the course beating Wedgetail (Welbourne 42), Ran Tan (50 footer canter), and the trimaran. Magic Trick scored first and Blink second on general club and PHRF making it Shaw sweep.
It was a fabulous insight to what Blink is capable of and she absolutely loved both the uphill and down hill runs. She is perfectly well balanced, easy to handle and makes her crew extremely happy.
It was awesome having Booboo on board and even more so given it was his birthday. A few birthday beers flowed after the race to celebrate, and a clubroom full of RPNYC folks sang him a big happy birthday.
Next up: Brothers Race, first Cook Strait crossing, next Saturday. Mr Shaw will be joining us for that one.
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People in Wellington last Saturday night could be forgiven for thinking that the fireworks in the harbour ...
... were something to do with Guy Fawkes night. This conclusion was of course naively misguided, since Guy Fawkes was on the 5th of November, and a far more important event occurred on the 9th of November. This was Blinks first offshore, the Brothers Race, with Line Honours for the 12m Shaw design, with Rob himself on board. This was Robs first sail on Blink except from a very light-airs inaugural outing in August.
Our offshore crew numbers are limited, so we could only take 9 people, and with Rob coming down some of our regulars had to stay behind, including Vesna with her arm in plaster. Hence she was able to take the great off-the-boat pics.
Wed had problems with our furling setup the night before the race, the top-down ones in particular needing some fine-tuning, so we elected to free-fly the kites except of course for the Code 0. As it turned out, the Code 0 off the line (that we, like almost everyone else, were very late for) was an excellent choice and we shot away from the rest of the fleet who stalled out in Oriental Bays typical fickle southerly conditions. Ran Tan started to catch us on the reach across Evans Bay, we carried our C0 a bit far and they sneaked inside us 2-sail reaching. Lead change number 1.
Then we started chipping away at Ran Tans lead, eventually catching them and overtaking at Moaning Minnie. Not only does Blink rip downwind, but it seems she goes upwind pretty well too.
So we led Ran Tan out of the harbour. Lead change number 2.
The tight reach along the south coast saw Ran Tan get forward on us to lead us around Sinclair Head. Lead change number 3.
But then we got the Code 0 up again, and crept around Ran Tan again by the time we got to Karori light, lead change number 4.
They were north of us, however, so only needed to put a little extra speed on to pass us again. Which they did. Lead change number 5.
We had our A2 up again by now, so got going downwind. We gybed in towards Terawhiti, and out again and headed for the other side.
We could see the compass bearing to Ran Tan decreasing as we regained the lead. Change number 6. We rounded the Brothers 12 minutes ahead of Ran Tan, and then dealt with the only tactical dilemma of the race.
Craig had been running the weather and tide info, along with some very creatively produced guesses as offshore Shaw 12 polars, for a couple of days. And the courses suggested seemed to alternate between heading straight back east, or putting a tack back in to the south after going a couple of miles on starboard tack from the Brothers. So we did put a tack in. Seemed like a very rational idea at the time. And we probably didnt sail quite as low and fast as we should have on the way across after that. So Ran Tan tacked off the North Island coast and crossed us on port by a few hundred metres. Lead change number 7.
But once back on the wind, we were back in the game, and then had the opportunity to lee-bow Ran Tan and force them back away from shore. That paid off handsomely, lead change number 8, and we built up a pretty decent lead after that. Then we got around the south coast as well as we could, Code 0 again between Sinclair and Minnie, then A2 into the harbour, pretty much all the way to the line.
Well, pretty much. There was discussion about how to handle Kau bay with the Halswell finish bearing at the other end. With plenty of east in the southerly, wed hoped to carry the kite most of the way to the line. As it turned out we needed to lose the kite about halfway across, as we got gusts coming from the southwest down the hill. No problem if wed had a furler attached, we didnt. No problem if we could bear away, but we couldnt as there was a row of 5 tinnies all anchored and fishing exactly where we needed to go. So: problem. Kite in water, only bit of chaos in the whole race, within sight of the line. We didnt catch any fish, but not for want to trying. Apparently salt water is an excellent way of preventing mildew on sails, if so our A2 is mould-safe.
We didnt take many pics on the boat, but did run the time-lapse camera and will splice in some of the other video we took... to follow.
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What can I say about this boat seen at Hullbridge? She’s similar to her smaller sister, the First 211,* but with far more of everything – space, power and speed. I dont know what sort of engine she has, but First 260s can be powered by an inboard diesel engine such as a Yanmar 9 HP 1GM10 with a folding prop. The video ‘Beneteau First 260 Tour’ **gives the viewer a good idea of her interior.
This attractive 25’ 3” X 9’ 1” lifting keel yacht will surely give her owner a lot of fun. She offers the best of everything: performance, combined with shallow draught (2 9") when the keel is in the raised position.
The Used Boat Test*** by Sailing Today provides more detail.
*Beneteau First 211: http://bills-log.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/boats-seen-at-burnham-part-3-beneteau.html
**Beneteau First 260 Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrUyrjliYb4
***Beneteau First 260 Spirit:http://www.sailingtoday.co.uk/uncategorized/beneteau-first-260-spirit/
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