Sail New Zealand

I went on the America's Cup boat yesterday (Saturday). Wow was it fun. If you wanted to you could help out with the sailing of the boat. So several times I grinded which is help to raise and lower the sails. It was a good day some clouds and sun and just the right amount of wind to make it an incredible experience.

Some of the pictures did not come out as well as I'd hoped. I'd accidently bumped the setting on the camera. Click on the picture to see it larger.

This is the boat we went in.

Starting to prepare the boat.


Our captain taking us out of the harbor


The fist grind. You could grind forward or backwards. There was an arrow showing which way was forward. You turn as fast as you can and with two people doing it the handles realy flew.















Grinding















More grinding. As you can see these guys are going full out. It's hard on your back too.















Auckland harbor.















It looks like we just clear underneath the bride. Actually it's about 4 meters or around15 feet.
















Grinding up the sail. You can see it coming out of hold.
















The sail comes up.




















And up a little further. There were a total of 4 grinding positions which would use 8 people total. For this sail only two stations were used.




















The sail is still coming out. There was actually a problem with the sail. Something was on the wrong side so they had to haul it down correct the problem and grind it back up.















Everyone who wanted to could take a turn at the wheel. The captain is to the right in this picture. When I took the wheel he asked if I sailed and I said no and he said well neither did he. The boat was pretty easy to steer. You made just very minor corrections. I even got to steer when we came about.















The last grind.




Our captain bringing us back into the harbor. It was a wonderful couple of hours. And what surprises me is my arms don't hurt today.