When two boats are in the same bit of water...

The saying goes: "When two boats are in the same bit of water, heading in the same direction, it's a race!".

And when one boat is British and the other is American, it's a re-run of the Americas Cup....

We were delighted to be sailing against Bravo, a Kelly Peterson 46 belonging to our great mates Cindi and Adam (whom we first met in Fiji to share some memorable experiences in Fulaga tow years ago). They have had an enforced 18 months' break from sailing after Cindi fell from the ladder when Bravo  was in a boatyard, breaking her back and her wrist. Thankfully her back has made a full recovery, though her wrist is still giving her a few problems, and they made full use of the time to do a major refit of the boat. So last week was the first full test of new sails, new electronics and some serious work to the rudder and propeller shaft - just have a look at their blog http://svbravo.blogspot.co.nz/ to see how much work went in to all that!

Anyway, they sailed up from Whangarei to join us in a lovely anchorage in the Bay of Islands and, after a walk on the island of Urapukapuka and a meal aboard Maunie, we had a cracking race back into Opua. A few pics of each boat are below:

Bravo going well to windward

She's a cutter rig (two foresails) like Maunie 

Perfect conditions!

Maunie at work

..and showing here bottom

The race? Ah, well, it was really close but, um, the USA beat Britain, I'm afraid. Well, they are a bigger boat, have new sails and I'm sure we can claim redress with the Protest Committee! 

We're now in the marina in Opua waiting for a weather window but, wow, the weather has changed here in the past few days! We've had a big storm over us last night:

We had nearly 50 knots overnight.

The week ahead, unfortunately, doesn't look great in terms of escaping the increasingly-chilly NZ weather so we'll have to be patient.......