International Maritime Sea Dog day

 

Today, August 26th, is International Maritime Sea Dog Day, so here's to you Oz. He often doesn't think much of some of our maritime pursuits, but he goes along with it good faithful sea dog that he is.  

I have finished "Barca" and launched twice now, once before paint job, just to check that Oz and I would fit in it.  There is plenty of room for him.  I am not sure how we will go getting from SCAMP to Scraps and back again, but so far so good - it is a fun little boat.  I launched again at the WBA sailing day, with a coat of paint and a name plate screwed on - a more official launch.

One nice surprise is that Barca fits in the back of the Subaru Forester.  It is way easier than getting the boat up on the roof.  I drove to Albert Park Lake on Sunday with the boat in the car, and nearly gassed myself with the paint fumes.  But it was a nice first real try out. Barca certainly handles very nicely, I am sure I will have fun with it, and it will certainly be fun for grand children.

The weather last week was lovely, and Chris suggested a sail over to near Webb Dock for a lunch at anchor.  It was a splendid sail, and I am very glad we seized the opportunity, as the weather has definitely packed up this week - the allegedly mythical Equinoctial Gales are upon us I suspect.

You can see from the video that Oz is much happier on the SCAMP - he is grinning his head off as we are getting ready to cast off, unlike the dour expression in the smaller open boat.

Now I have more or less finished Barca, it is catch up time.  I pruned the vines and the fig yesterday, and mowed the lawn.  Today a bit of a tidy up sort out day, slowly finding things I have hidden over the last couple of months.  

Fingers crossed we get some more quiet days so I can continue the Barca experiment.

If at first

 

The months run away like wild horses over the hill. Since my last post, just about a month ago, it has all been a bit of a blur, post COVID maybe, or maybe just getting older. But looking at the Scraps pictures, I can see I must have been doing something. That's one good thing about boat building, it gives some sort of physical  marker of time's passage ... and with luck you get a boat to use at the end of it.

I have quite enjoyed this little boat build. It looks very salty, and being small, the steps are relatively achievable with small bursts of activity. I went from the Turkish delight look stage  (when the epoxy is sanded it takes on a whitish powdery appearance) yesterday, with the boat all sanded, to the shiney stage with the last coat of epoxy on the outside today. Epoxy inside tomorrow, then paint, then launch.  With luck, we are nearly there. 

Thanks to Chris' help, a couple more legs of the round the bay challenge have been completed, not without some excitement. Our first attempt to get across to Clifton Springs was rather more exciting than we anticipated.

The winds were much higher than the forecast, but Anjevi did a great job. We didn't make it into Clifton Springs on this attempt, as the Torqeedo clogged up with weed.

Undaunted, we tried again the next week, from Avalon this time, with much better weather. We managed to get into Clifton Springs, and I managed to break the shear pin on the Torqeedo, but it was a long but much more relaxing day. If at first you don't succeed, try try again.

For completeness, I should probably go around Corio Bay in the SCAMP, launch at St Helens and make sure to cross our course from Avalon. Then the next leg is to launch at Clifton Springs and sail round to Portarlington and back. Then a leg from Portarlington to Queenscliff, if that's not too far to do in a day, maybe split at St Leonards, and that's the Western side of the Bay done.  Logistics for the Eastern side are a bit trickier. There maybe some overnights required.  

Hey ho, hopefully the next month sees "Barca" the Scraps launched and a bit more round the Bay progress.  Perhaps the two are not unrelated.

My log tells me I have been on the water on 61 days in the SCAMP since launch, and covered over 500 Nm. Great little boat, it has more than lived up to my expectations. Good boat Anjevi.