Saving Old Seagulls

Yesterday was the second running of the Bay of Islands Seagull Race , well it more of a number of races and get together really .
Hosted by Darryl Honey and his team at the Pier , assisted by Seagull racer Mark McMurtry and his wife Miranda.

Saturday dawned fine , but the breeze was forecast to rise

a get together at the pier on friday night by most attending was pleasant and after a briefing ,racing got underway about 10am saturday morning . An all class in one affair and the most notable was a good standard by a couple of new local converts . the race was run down breeze past a couple of islands round a marker and back to the start in to a building chop . No one hit each other despite a converging fleet at times and most people wore a big smile being out on the water again !

As all comers 2hp race was run and I'd borrowed a motor which ran well

Local Micheal in a 12 foot cat of his own design won with myself and Ian not too far away . Fun , but hardly seagull stuff .

After Lunch it was the main race to the falls and back , and with a crew on board we punched out to a good start . Disappointed Adrian didn't make the start with ignition failure. It was Tinker and Holy verse us chasing the flying dinghys of Graham and Mark with Michael's Cat along side . As the water calmed under the Waitangi bridge we edged out from Tinker , hanging on to the dinghies up stream at the turn around by the falls . Half way back we pasted the cat and had Graham in our sights . Then the motor stopped dead !

I checked the fuel bowl , and decided it could only be the plug . hurriedly changed that as Andy and Holy powered by .Going again we passed Graham rowing by the finish . Ha ! such is seagull racing .
Well done to Mark first home , Andy first 20 . To all those who ran the event , sponsors , the pier , west pac , nz fresh , woodstock bourbon and the 30 odd boats that came along . thanks , a lot of fun . I'll be back for sure .

if I missed you out sorry If you have a pic of this event please post here .

this and more photos can be seen at the face book page https://www.facebook.com/seagullracingb ... fref=photo

Nice work Chris. I only took two photos all weekend and Nina made a point of leaving her camera at home!

Chilli dog is in great form thank you .