Then Tin Dragon went racing

20th March 2011

The International Tin Canoe Regatta is now officially (or should I say "unofficially"?) a non-event. Work that one out... A bunch of tin canoe enthusiasts (this year with 11 canoes) happen to show up at Iluka each March for a fun weekend. Saturday is taken up with putting the final touches on all the canoes and we need to test them out on the Sunday with a few races. Nothing too serious, I never heard anyone yell "Water!" although Azzo did seem pretty keen to win. Saturday night is, of course, a party.

That reminds me - I should mention that there was more than enough water coming from the heavens. It was a wet weekend.

 Savaad and I were still tweaking right up to the start.




















Finally we were underway on the first race. It was too good to be true. I took the helm and Savaad was forward hand. It felt so good.



Before we even reached the second mark calamity struck. The bamboo forward mast snapped. What to do? We had been having so much fun!














We decided to continue and Savaad managed to get some wind into the jib by holding it out. I found I could steer reasonably well.











Well reasonably well but not well enough. I rammed John's canoe while rounding the second mark. Luckily protests are not part of this non-event. Even more fortunately we were going so slowly that I didn't cause any damage. We just disentangled our canoes and kept going.

We got a prize for being the "most optimistic", apparently it is pretty optimistic to continue to race after being dismasted.



After the first race Savaad set to work to sorting out a new bamboo forward mast but it wasn't ready in time for the second race so I jumped aboard and said I would sail single handed with main only. See photo below. That went well except for the fact that the canoe was rapidly filling with water. There are about a dozen polystyrene vegetable boxes as buoyancy and I thought we were going to find out if they worked. I finished but with far less free board than when I started. We had sprung a major leak at the base of the forward mast. The leak put an end to the idea of sailing as a schooner. We stuck to one mast for the rest of the day and Savaad raced the third race solo  finishing successfully if rather damp. Then Caz and Cathy each took a turn as a very damp forward hand for Savaad. Sadly Beronice had to keep her little toe dry following surgery so couldn't join in.

Team Tin Dragon had such a good time that we'll be back at the Ides of March next year.

First we built Tin Dragon

The International Tin Canoe (non event) Regatta has very few rules but the basic one is that the canoes must be built out of 1 sheet of roofing iron. Well see below - one sheet of iron in my garage. We're underway...

There are 5 of us in Team Tin Dragon, myself, Savaad, Beronice, Cathy and Caz. We have all contributed in different ways but Savaad must be acknowledged as the main designer and builder of our splendid 4.5 metre tin canoe.

The whole ethos of the non-event is to keep alive a tradition of home built affordable canoes. Ours ended up costing just under $150. Most of the materials were donated or scrounged, thanks Merrick for the tin, Beronice for the windsurfer sail, Peter for the rudder, Savaad's friend for the bamboo and Rob for the plans and bringing round an industrial sewing machine to make a polytarp jib (that we didn't end up using as Rob found another old windsurfer sail going dirt cheap at Ballina Recycle).

Rob nonchalantly claims they can be made in a day. Well ours is a work of art and I can assure you that it took many days of hard work and it was still only finished just in time.


Here's Savaad, the master canoe builder, at work. Below is a photo showing that I did a bit as well...
 

Cathie made sure that she pitched in but needed an apron to cover her white shorts.

Caz's role was to paint a wonderful red tin dragon on the wind surfer sail. Our mascot.

The outrigger is made of bamboo, a float of Schizalobium aka Brazilian Tree Fern (with appearance and weight like balsa wood) and rubber bindings from an old inner tube.

It seemed wise to check that Tin Dragon floated before the non-event. So with just a couple of days to spare we took her down to Lake Ainsworth. She floated with only the tiniest leak. The rig was still a work-in-progress, so it wasn't really possible to see if she sailed.


Rob and Rosie also tested their new tin canoe (not yet named) on Lake Ainsworth. She sailed really well but Rob needed to caulk some major leaks.

What a shocking start at BRSC Regatta

12 March 2011
For some inexplicable reason I didn't take a single photo at this regatta so just to confuse you all here is a photo of Nicky Greenlaw and me taken in Fiji during the July 2010 school holidays where we crewed for Jim Marco on his yacht Intention. Nicky was teaching on Lord Howe Island for the whole of 2010 so I lost one of my most frequent crews. Now she is back teaching in the Northern Rivers and enthusiastically accepted my invitation to crew at this regatta.

Pam and Nicky in Fiji July 10

We got a shocking start. About 10 minutes before the start there was a light breeze and we zoomed over to the far side of the river anticipating heaps of time to return to the near side and position ourselves for the start. Others were smarter than us and got in position close to the line earlier. At the critical moment the wind died away completely and we ended up almost 15 minutes late over the line. A couple of times I had to tack away from the line as I was about to drift into the committee boat. I didn't fancy trying penalty turns in a dead calm. Clearly I need to work on starting strategies.

Fortunately quite soon a light breeze sprang up and although it was slow going against the tide we were able to hold a narrow reach most of the way to the Goodwood Mark (which is about 2/3 of the way to Iluka). As one of the "slower yachts" we were told to shorten course by turning back at the Goodwood mark. We were on a broad reach and then a run all the way back to the Harwood Bridge. The new modified extendable boat hook aka whisker pole was a great success (see the last post for the fate of the previous whisker pole). The gentle breeze was a pleasant contrast to the wild conditions at the November Bridge to Breakers regatta.

Although we were almost the last to cross the finishing line we had enjoyed the afternoon and were quite pleased to find ourselves placed 6 out of 8 in the handicap results for our division. At least we weren't last.

It is probably best that I draw a veil over the rest of the day. Unfortunately there was an incident when I went to fetch the trailer to pull Little Dragon out of the water. We planned to overnight ashore as we needed to leave the next morning. My car ended up with damage to the wing and I was pretty upset.

However the dent in my car is being fixed (thank you APIA) and I am already looking forward to the November Bridge to Breakers.