September 10th, 2019

Heading North to Bash the Winter...

Craving a bit of salt water therapy, I decided to take the ‘little’ drive north for the 2019 Humpybong Winterbash - Did-not-regret-it!
Conditions: Sunny and mild, but on arrival I went “Uh-oh, not again”. Having had a glass-off at the last regatta attended (Brass Monkey @ Toukley) there was that stillness of nothing happening in the air – again. The locals assured me that there would be a breeze, and by the time we got going there was a nice little NE 5-8k pushing us around. 

Format: 2 days of pretty social mixed fleet sailing with the promise of at least 10 Wetas.
Day 1 – 3x races around the cans, which were deliberately not moved for any wind changes ... as they said at the briefing: what ya got is what ya got!
Day 2 – Marathon race
Highlights:
- some delightful, stress-free, close racing.
- some of the most bizarre starting lines I’ve seen for a while ... with Hamish U even pulling off a clean port tack cross, with the kite up!

Results:
On Saturday, Messers Hackett and Foley swapped wins, but on the result sheet the next morning (almost) everyone was highly amused to see they were not given a finish in one race, which saw young Mitchell and myself at the top of the Weta pile. [unfortunately, it got noticed & Petey had a little wet blanket moment and asked for them to be corrected, looked good for a while – hahaha]
Saturday night: Many of us headed to BBQ at the Hackett’s where we proceeded to solve all the world’s problems.
Sunday marathon: SE-E, max 5 k.
This turn into a lovely cruise in sparkling sunny conditions. After a short half-hour work, we went through a gate, turned right, strapped the kites down tight and sailed for an hour heading south, found a mark, turned around with kites again up and strapped down tight heading north, and back through that gate ... and kept going. For another hour or so. Turned around, with kites strapped down, and back south to that original gate. Then a short downhill slide to the finish. 

A total soldiers course, which was so non-stressful that I almost forgot about racing completely and just had a lovely sail with a bunch of Weta mates.
Really could not have asked for a more pleasant weekend – thanks to the Queensland boys!
And as an added bonus on the way home, got to drop in and meet our newest Weta owner – Andy from Yamba. Nice bloke and hopefully will be showing his face from time to time at various regattas.

By Keith Chidzey