RNZYS Three Kings Offshore Race – Meet the entrants Part 1
In our first edition of our RNZYS Three Kings Offshore Race meet the entrants, we catch up with Damon from Rogue II. Hear from Damon below, and if you haven’t yet, make sure you get your race entry in ASAP as spots are now very limited!
You’ve got a few miles under your belt…what is your sailing background?
Josh (Tucker) and I have done a few miles together now, most significantly a lot of two handed sailing. More importantly our crew that we have on for the RNZYS Three Kings Offshore Race is the same crew we’ve sailed with many times before. Hayden Braddock has been a friend of both Josh and I since we were young children and we both started sailing with Richie Watson and Tom Kearney many years ago on Richie’s SR26 ‘Rattle n Rum’. This is the identical crew that we did the last Auckland – Gisborne race with on the Sunfast 3600 in 2016.
What are your essential food items during offshore races?
I like cooking meals offshore and knowing that the crew have eaten well with a hot meal (none of this freeze dried stuff). A happy crew is a fast crew. We are definitely creatures of habit offshore, so it’s bacon butties for breakfast, usually sausages or frankfurters for lunch, and curry or some other rice or pasta dish for dinner. There is always a good selection of hot sauces onboard plus toasted sandwiches and coffee have a habit of appearing in the wee hours of the morning.
What excites you about the Three Kings Race this year?
That it has only been sailed once before, and we are yet to compete in it. The idea of doing a long offshore race is the reason we go yachting, it doesn’t matter what the conditions – although maybe a heinous slog upwind is slightly less appealing – sailing through the night is just the best thing, and any race that has that is appealing.
What’s your favourite part of Rogue II and your crew?
We have all done a lot of yachting together now, and by far the best part is how we all get along. The mood and attitude onboard is always awesome, nothing is ever a problem, and we have a great combination of racing hard and having fun at the same time (well at least we think we do). We go out there, push as hard as we can and have a great time and a lot of laughs while doing it, and when things get a little tough, we just get on with it. We don’t have fixed positions or fixed watch times, it’s all fluid and we adapt as we go. Simple as that. And we usually have a fairly good party after the finish!
In summary – we can’t wait, bring it on!
