Thursday training fun

Our headline sponsor at the PredictWind A-Cat Worlds 2025 had got it pretty much bang on in Thursday’s forecast.  A nice 12-13 kts NNE out on Castor Bay and slowly falling throughout the afternoon.  But, the wind over tide again created a chop on the water much larger than the wind deserved, and half meter short frequency waves made for lumpy riding out to the middle of the bay in a RIB with a fat bloke on board plus his 12kg of kit. But this was the area favoured by the sailors for their practice/setup/mode testing/playpen area.

Each day now, sees a few more boats turn up at the lovely parkland style boatpark at the Milford Cruising Club.  Most of the detritus of the previous nights pyrotechnic fun had been cleared away, although the odd used rocket carcass was still to be seen here and there. Local boats arrived, and shuttles of tug cars, frequently driven by Brent Harsant went back and forth to the container storing area to return with another overseas boat bouncing behind. The ideal task for the lad, as in the real world he does that for his day job, only with 200,000 ton container ships bouncing behind instead.  The boats were then descended upon by their carers, much in the way medics descend upon the hapless victim of a minor accident brought into A&E, and with similar comments such as ‘Ah this looks fine, it’ll be OK’ and ‘Are you sure this supposed to look like that?’   Then, duly rigged, most were keen to get out to play on the surprisingly warm waters of the bay with it’s wide sandy beach sprinkled with its delightful selection of local fauna catching the rays. 

Out in the playground, the sailors were living their best lives. Classics surfing and trapezing downwind, the foilers doing what they do.  This is why I love practice days so much as a photographer.  You turn up in the middle of the area, and suddenly they are like flies around a dead gazelle, buzzing you closely to get their head on action poses, something to hang in the office to remind them why they are sitting there in the first place.  It’s wonderful, as when it’s race time, the whole vibe will change, because suddenly you have now become an unwelcome intrusion into their race plan and head space.

Matt Hall-Smith, my chauffeur for the day, and one of the event safety leads, was on the lookout for his boy, Hamish, who was out testing his repaired port dagger rake system on his DNA F1.  Quite easy to spot from a distance as he was one of those with a black Seam Tech sail.  We joined up for observations on his sail shape, suggestions how to improve it and make it far flatter at the top, maybe those soft top battens weren’t the best idea, and other fatherly encouragement, which, as often is the way when an experienced father imparts knowledge to an offspring, one could only hope was taken on board.  But he’s a fast and fearless lad and has fortunately been taken under the wing of Dave Shaw, the Kiwi ace, who is mentoring him greatly. 

We were just finishing up and thinking about going beachward, when I noticed three white sails coming up in an Easterly direction from the beach.  Other boats were sailing about here and there half a mile away.  Within a few minutes, these three boats had arrived and passed through all the others and continued onwards.  It was Kuba POL41, Dave NZL 270 and Micheal POL111.  They were going absolutely flat out upwind, fully foiling, level and seemingly effortlessly doing 25-27kts.  They shot through like a tight formation of jet fighters, waves seemed to be immaterial to them, just cutting through like a laser cuts steel.  It was a truly magnificent site, I have to say.  I turned to Matt ‘THAT is the speed performance you will need to win this event.’ I said and he nodded sagely.

So, as their name suggests, #PredictWind had predicted that the breeze slowly dropped, about 7 kts I measured out on the course, so we headed for home.  The club bar was open, and the restaurant had a rib steak special on tonight and, having had a rather good Chicken Pasta Carbonara for lunch, I was keen get my protein intake balanced.  Friday is the start of the festivities at this lovely club.  Food trucks, local beers and wines and a live band. Good food, good mates, good times await them. 

I bet you’d wish you’d come now don’t you?