This year’s Tāmaki Estuary Spring Challenge was held on a fine warm day with a light to moderate North Easterly wind . 

The decision on where to sail was left until meeting time at 10 a.m., when we could assess the weather and the capability of the entrants. Rather surprisingly only Doug and Nigel turned up. However Doug brought a friend Lynette, who was happy to be co-opted to help in the support boat. So I was happy to be co-opted to switch to sailing instead.  My fitness level is about 2/10, as I’d only sailed 3 times last season, and then 40 years ago prior to that. However in the conditions, with walking-wounded Bruce and Lynette running the support boat, and considering how easy it is to sail these WindsurferLT’s, a race to Motuihe Island seemed like a reasonable target for me. 

We set off from Bucklands Beach around 11:15, in a barely moderate northerly, with an on-water stop planned to be at the channel marker at the west end of the ferry channel between Musick Point and Brown’s Island. I left the beach in the biggest hurry and as a result had a lovely lead for the first half mile; a significant moral victory for me, even if it was the only time I lead for the rest of the day. Doug in particular proved to have much more speed than me all day.

The plan was for any leader to turn back to behind whoever was running last, therefore keeping the fleet somewhat together throughout the race. However as it turned out, conditions were so benign that apart from Doug turning back a couple of times on the race out, we all just raced towards the finishing point as quickly as possible. We regrouped briefly at the on-water stop, then set off again, out past Browns Island, tacking upwind over to Waihaorangatahi Bay on the western side of Motuihe Island.

Doug’s tracker recorded that it took almost 2:28 hours for him at average speed of 3.6 knots and a peak of 9.5 knots. Doug sailed 8.7 nautical miles with tacking to cover the approximately 4.5 nautical miles pre-plotted distance. I probably took approx. 2:45 hours to beach at the tail end.

The wind all the way out had been around 6 to 12 knots, and less for the last tacks into the bay. We sailed through a group of about two dozen yachts and launches at anchor in the bay and finished on the beach.

The bay is an extremely popular anchorage, with many people ashore roaming the island. There is currently no ferry service to there, so it’s only accessible by private vessels. There are large information boards near the currently closed information kiosk. It’s history includes it being the internment camp for the colourful German naval officer and escapee, Count Felix Von Luckner, around the time of the first World war. It was the naval training establishment HMNZS Tāmaki during the Second World war. Nearly all of the Tāmaki buildings were removed after the war. However a small information kiosk and an excellent block of toilets and changing rooms have since been built near the site of the navy establishment past the north end of Waihaorangatahi Bay.

After an hour’s rest and lunch we set off to sail downwind back to Bucklands Beach. We were happy to lead out well ahead of the support boat, so Bruce could go and have a look for Tuatara and also check out the excellent replanting set up, seedling sheds etc, that the folks from the Motuihe Trust doing there. We hope to plan more time so we can all see that and more of the island next time we sail out to Motuihe Island.

There was no afternoon sea breeze effect, so it was quite a challenging sail back downwind with not much wind above 10 knots, and sloppy waves everywhere. After getting clear of Motuihe Island, I found it most managable to be on a port run, and much less so on starboard, as it was more across wave. The upshot of that was that I was making a beeline more in the direction of Eastern Beach than Musick Point for much of the way back. I was mainly concentrating on keeping the logical vertical alignment of sailor, sailboard, seawater in that order, but managed to fall in around six to eight times on the way back. I’ve always said that splashdowns were character building but I still wasn’t impressed at the time. I felt better when on landing back at the Bucklands Beach shore, the first thing Doug commented on was about how tricky the sloppy conditions were.

Nigel had been quite close to me most of the way back but quite a distance to weather, and following Doug’s more direct track from Motuihe Island to the Musick Point – Browns Island channel. He found it the most tricky getting through the slop just off Musick Point, whereas I had a bit of luck there with quite good wind pressure, so I got through there relatively easily.

We both finished within about 15 minutes of Doug, whose time for the return race was 1:15 hours, averaging 4 knots, and a peak of 8.2 knots, sailing an almost direct 5.0 nautical miles to cover the 4.5 nautical miles pre-plotted.

All in all it was a cracker of a day. Motuihe Island is definitely worth more visits to. At just 4.5 nautical miles from Bucklands Beach, it is an easily achievable destination for most reasonably proficient people on a Windsurfer LT.