Visiting Volvo

My lovely friend Naomi flew up to Auckland last weekend (while I was reconciling the Yacht Club’s bank statement…!) and she went to see the Volvo Ocean Racing yachts. I was super jealous that I wasn’t going as well! Naomi is a brilliant writer and she agreed to write a guest post on the blog…

Winning isn’t everything, unless…

Winning isn’t everything unless you are sailing with Team Machine… The only thing that comes close to being as important as winning is looking good! – Rule #1! Andrew has just spent the last few weekends racing another Young 88 called Flying Machine. Here is his report of how this last weekend went…

A day in the life at Naval Point Club Lyttelton

I have been a member at Naval Point Club Lyttelton for about 15 years now. I spent a couple of years as the Rear Commodore for Keelboats and I have always helped out running the crew list, maintaining the club Facebook page and helping organise social events. This time last year, our long standing club…

He who yells loudest…

I love racing yachts. For me it’s a great excuse to get out on the water. Not being a super competitive person, it doesn’t really worry me either way if we win or lose, but I do enjoy trying our best, but not at the expense of having a good time, a few beers and…

Time and Tide waits for no man…

“Time & Tide waits for no man!” That was what the haulout manager reminded me when we had broken down on the way to to be hauled out. (big drama, diesel bug in the fuel tanks, and we had to throw out the anchor to avoid being blown on to the rocks) we were stuck,…

Love Thy Dinghy

At Christmas, we bought another boat for the growing family boat collection. It is a Nautilus Dinghy and we got it from our friends Aaron & Juliet who own Oddies Marine in the Sounds. We named her Nauti Puff, as she is just a smaller version of Puff our slightly larger inflatable dinghy! Puff was…

COLREGS, Lights & Sailing at Night

Despite learning all my lights and being a nerd with the Coastguard Boating Education flash cards, when you are at sea at night it is really hard to decipher navigation lights on other boats. I think the main difficulty I have is knowing how close you are to the other boat. We don’t have radar…

Well Hello Big Buoy!

Yes I am back to studying again! Time to refresh the old buoyage knowledge. It is handy stuff to know (especially if you have an exam coming up or are planning on navigating in a new area!) Non sailors – please read on, you might learn something for a quiz night. Sailors will probably (hopefully)…