Race around Rangitoto

One of the many benefits of my Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship is that the Rotarians in my host club, the Remuera Club, often extend invites for me to join them on some adventure or other. This weekend past, I was invited by Iain Valentine to join him in a sailing race around Rangitoto Island. Iain is a trustee for a charitable trust responsible for maintaining five historic boats in the possession of the Maritime Museum. One part of this "maintenance" is sailing them regularly, to keep them in good condition. So Saturday, I joined Iain and four other crew members on Frances, a 38 foot former fishing vessel built in 1905.

Unfortunately, I started the day off on the wrong foot, and slipped and fell on the dock before we even made it to the boat. It wouldn't have been such a big deal, except the dock is textured to approximate large-grain sandpaper for better traction, and as I was wearing shorts, my knee was definitely scraped up. (I should have a pretty amazing scab about a week from now.) But after bandaging that up, we got Frances ready to sail and motored out to the starting line. Finally, at the sixth pip on a certain radio station telling the time, we were OFF!!

Except not, as the lovely weather for the day didn't really include wind, which as it turns out, is highly important for this particular sport. It was a long, slow race, and finally, about 3/4 of the way through, we gave up. At that rate, we wouldn't have made it home before 9, and none of us were prepared to stay out quite that long! Quite a few other boats had to drop out as well, and we weren't the first to call it quits, so we were all pretty comfortable with the decision. Besides, it was Cake Day - every boat had a cake to get judged and eaten at the finish line - so, since we didn't cross the finish line, we didn't have to share our cake!

Despite the lack of wind, it was a great day out on the water. I learned a bit more about what needs to be done to make a boat sail, and hopefully my next time out, I'll have a better chance to put my skills to good use!