Local Knowledge
This year the Coastal Classic had 143 entrants including 16 multi’s and 127 monohulls. The multis included Orma 60 Frank Racing (ex-Vodafone) and Mod 70 Beau Geste (ex-Phaedo).
Frank racing took Beau Geste by 8 minutes.
Conditions were truly awesome with 20 knots southwest meaning a reach all the way to Cape Brett followed by an upwind into Russell. Our boat is a modified Great Barrier Express catamaran originally built in 1978 but a bit like granddaddy’s axe she’s been updated a bit since then.
We had an awesome race until we broke our prod at whangarei heads blast reaching at 18 knots. We completed the race in 4th place in 11 hours with an average speed of 10.8 knots. Most of the race was blast reaching at 16 knots plus.
Two other 8.5 cats Tigre and Attitude finished in 9.5 hours finishing in daylight averaging 12.5 knots. Stealth (booboo’s brothers tri) finished just in front of us.
Multi sailing just ruins you for racing monohulls! – Anarchist Phil
