Day 195 Malolo Race

We were invited to ride with Rick on Mufasa for the yacht race around Mololo Island. Mufasa is an offshore racing machine with heavy rigging and “grinders” to winch in the jib sheets (the lines that hold the jib sail in place). Rick runs a charter yacht business in Russell, New Zealand and is clearly keen about offshore racing (Al Borden, you would love this part).
The start was at noon but the boats were jockeying for position and testing out various sail configurations by 1000. Mufasa is equipped with a large spinnaker, which Mark and Rick set up so that it could be deployed on the downwind leg of the race.
We crossed the starting line in sixth place on an upwind leg and within a few miles had passed two other boats. The wind was stronger than anticipated so none of the boats had reefed their sails. This made for some interesting watching as two of the boats in front of us just about laid down in the water when a large gust of wind hit them. One of them was a 68 foot boat with a very tall mast and watching her tip toward the water was pretty awesome. These big keel boats are almost impossible to capsize as they weigh so much that the wind cannot really knock them down but they do “round up” into the wind as the air spills from their sails and this causes a rapid and somewhat uncontrolled turn to occur which can result in collisions during racing. Fortunately, this did not occur and the boats continued around the island. On the downwind leg, the wind was blowing at a pretty steady 20 to 25 knots, which was too strong for spinnaker use so none of the pretty balloons came out. I had put my camera away anyway as the deck was wet with spray.
Last year, the race lasted more than 4 hours but with stronger winds this year, the first boat – a catamaran – crossed the finish line in one hour and 36 minutes. This boat had been designed and built by a man in New Zealand and averaged 11 knots during the race. Mufasa, which is a mono-hull, hit 9.6 knots and finished seventh overall and fourth in mono-hulls at 1 hour and 58 minutes.
This was a very exciting day and aside from the fact that I lost another hat, it was really fun.
In the evening, there was another “event” at the island bar – the “Prince and Princess” party. As you might suspect, this means men dressing like women and visa versa. Some of the costumes were absolutely hilarious – like the two fat men in their 50’s in pink tutus with crowns and magic wands with stars on the ends. Under the tutus they were wearing thong underwear, which on a fat man looks pretty awful.