Despite having been on numerous different types of water going vessels for work and play, I have never been on a sailing boat. So when the opportunity came up to have a go I signed up for a morning of sailing with a bunch of people from work.
So we rocked up at the sailing club and had a safety briefing and got into wet weather gear before heading off. The problem was that half the people on the boat had sailed before and several of us had no clue what we were doing. I spent the first 30 minutes just trying to stay out of the way and watching what everyone did when the instructor shouted tack or jibe. It is a whole other language of jargon that I have no idea about. I think I finally got a rough idea of what to do at the end of 2 hours on the water.
Helen, trying to stay out of the way as we race down Evans Bay.
The conditions were pretty hard - 20 knot winds with 30 knot gusts and 1 m swell. Not conditions you would catch me out in the kayak. However it turned out they were pretty ideal conditions to be sailing and you certainly got quite a bit of speed up going down wind and surfing the waves.
Because there were three boats we had a little race down Evans Bay, past our offices and then back to the boat club. I'm sure this was intentional to make our colleagues whose windows look out on to the bay jealous!
The other two boats in the back ground with NIWA offices just on the edge of the coast on the left of the picture.
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It was a fun few hours and my arms are sore this morning as I did help with trimming the jib sheet (I think that is what it is called) and the main sail at the end of the two hours.
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