Wednesday 21 March 2012: Wednesday evening racing

Jonathan has been going out racing on Wednesday evenings recently with the Tasman Bay Cruising Club. He has now managed to persuade the owner/skipper of the yacht on which he has been sailing to take N. crewing as well and this evening I thought I would try and get some action shots of the fleet preparing to cross the starting line.

I was down at the wharf overlooking the area of Nelson Haven that leads to the Cut (the shipping channel between the end of the Boulder Bank and Haulashore Island), through which the fleet sails at the start of the race, in good time. The boats were sailing down from the marina in twos and threes and I got this shot not long after I arrived when there still weren't that many yachts around. I decided to make it the blip because of the nice light - the sun peeped through the rather ominous clouds for a few minutes creating silvery patches on the sea. (Try looking at it in LARGE). As I wasn't sure which boat J & N were on (and indeed if I had been, I doubt I would have been able to identify it!) I was just shooting away. It turns out that I only got a couple of shots of their boat!

I stayed for around half an hour and packed up once the last of the mixed fleet had sailed out through the Cut, so of course I have ended up with a great many photographs and I've uploaded three more here. I really wanted to blip one with the lighthouse on the Boulder Bank in the background, but the light wasn't so good for those shots. Sadly at that point in the evening there wasn't much of a breeze, so the boats aren't heeled over which would have made for more exciting, action shots. I'm told that once they got out on the course, there were some good gusts and a great time was had by all. Now, at midnight, the heavy black clouds have succumbed and the promised rain has started pattering down outside.

• Canon EOS 60D:
• f/5:
• 1/800":
• 55.0mm

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