More good action from downunder from Anarchist BooBoo…
In February next year we set off for the Round North Island 2 handed yacht race again. Organised by the good people at SSANZ (shorthanded sailing association of NZ). You might remember my last RNI race on the Thompson 850 sports boat ‘Waka’. Video here.
Once again I am going on a stupidly small, lightweight flyer…..
This time I’m on a 25+ year old local designed Ross 930 called ‘Pepe’ that has been pimped and turbo’ed to the maximum in true Anarchy style with a carbon rig, massive square head main, T bulb keel, retractable carbon prod, and anything else that makes a boat go fast.
My Co-skipper for this race is Westie, a talented 21 year old sailmaker from North Sails who is regularly seen up the pointy end of theTP52 ‘Kia Kaha’ and has what it takes for an event like this (loosely translated to- he does all the work and I just bark orders from the bean bag at the back…)
Our goal for this RNI campaign was to firstly win PHRF for our division (sports style keel boats) of the Simrad 2 handed series. This is a mid winter series with 140 entries and 3 races ranging from 50-100nm in length. We not only won this but actually owned it with a score line of 2, 1, 1.
Second goal was to win the shorthanded division of the 320nm Around White Island Race which also doubled as ours and many other RNI entrants qualifier for the RNI race. Each boat is required to complete a 250nm qualifying voyage to be eligible for the RNI .
Well we won the shorthanded division in convincing style and while we were at it also took out overall PHRF beating all the fully crewed entries and some MUCH larger boats on line (there were some dummy’s handed out at the prizegiving for some yachts that pulled out rather than being beaten by a 30fter on line…)
Next goal obviously is to win the main event, the 1400nm race around the north island of NZ 2 handed, an event that is simply as tough as it gets…
Can we achieve all of our goals?
The way we work is true to the Anarchy style, turboed, small, super quick boat, regular ‘happy hours’ at sea (drinking rules apply…), Kicking some ass and running as hard on the shore based events as we do in a 50kt roaring 40s gale.
Thanks to Phil Hart from hart and associates chartered accountants for paying our $950 entry fee. Manson Anchors for a huge amount of work on the boat, beers for happy hour, a couple of manson racer anchors and an unbelievable amount of support. Karver for some good kit to make everything easier and the Steve the boat owner for ‘lending’ us his boat!
Check out the white island race video here.
Pepe RNI Face Book page for updates on the adventures of BooBoo, Westie and our pet skunk (happy hour helmsman pictured above!) More cool yachting vid’s on my youtube channel here.
Cheers,
Josh (BooBoo)
