A drift

 

Thanks to an invitation from Chris, I launched the SCAMP last week from the Warmies ramp in Williamstown.  With one damn thing after another I have not got round to launching for ages, and that can be one of those pernicious cycles - the longer you go without launching, the harder it is to get the impetus to launch. 

It was one of those winter high pressure days, clear, freezing cold to start off, blue sky with barely a cloud, and almost no wind. Five WBA boats got out.  I made a video of the day.

One of the comments on the video pondered the appropriate collective noun to use for such an aggregation of boats - "a scrum" of SCAMPS?  " a wash" of Welsford boats? Given the almost total absence of wind, I think "a drift" might be the appropriate term.

Despite the lack of wind, it was a very pleasant day.  I got to work on my sculling of the SCAMP.  I find I can move the boat along in flat calm, one hand on the oar, one hand holding the cup of tea or camera or whatever, with not a lot of effort.  It is a nice gentle way to move the boat through the water - I can see using the scull to move the boat on future explorations of rivers and quiet waterways. 

Once there was some breeze, three boats sailed over to Williamstown, tied up at the public 48 hour jetty, and the crews enjoyed a very pleasant lunch in the sunshine.  Then we ghosted out, and got enough breeze to get us home.  Stephen chased me all the way back, but I managed to stay in front.  Everytime I would loose concentration or try something counterproductive, he would get a bit closer, but then I would tweak a bit and get a bit of distance back. The whole day was thoroughly enjoyable in a low key sort of way.

I have ordered some aluminium for spars, and I am about to order a 35 sq canoe lug sail from RSS. These are potentially for the 12' Bolger Pirogue, Barca the 6' Scraps, and possibly for any future small craft that might get built.   I have been inspired by listening to the latest Nanocruising Podcast with the inimitable Andre-Francois Borbeau .  I have been fascinated by his Gorfnik pdr, which sounds like a real hoot. I would love to build one of those one day. The urge to build and to tinker with boats is still strong. 

But meantime, there is a lot of unfinished business with the SCAMP.  We are have almost finished this phase of house moving.  Still about 15 boxes of various stuff to unload, and nowhere to put it all, but we are getting there. With luck there might some extended SCAMP sailing opportunities over the next couple of months while we wait for permits and organize builder for the next phase.

One of the many things which remains missing from our move is Ozzie's coat.  I have been feeling terribly guilty taking him out for his night walks in the cold, poor old thing.  Today we had to go up to Daylesford, which was grey and cold and raining, so we went to the pet shop there, and a lovely young guy in the shop helped us choose Oz a new coat.  Oz is extremely pleased with it. 

The house, with its solid walls, insulation, and good heating is pretty cosy as we approach mid winter.  We had a fire in the little wood stove, which is super efficient and puts out a nice heat without cooking us.  Everyone seems pretty happy with the living conditions.  The house is definitely starting to feel like home. 

Over stuff

 

We have moved into our little bluestone cottage at last. Our son kindly let us stay with him when we sold our old house, and we fondly imagined we would be moving in to the new house quite soon after.  But all projects take longer.  We are thoroughly enjoying playing house in the new place, working out how to live in this new place. Simple things, like getting a dish draining rack or curtains, are wonderfully satisfying.  We have fixed the front half of the house, which being stone and now well insulated, is mighty cosy now the days are getting colder. 

The scary thing is, we have brought over about half of the stuff we have in our storage unit, and the house is pretty much full. It was lovely when it was relatively empty, and each trip to the storage unit brings back more clutter.  I can barely get into my little shed, things fall out of the overfilled kitchen cupboards when you open them.  

I rather hoped we had done the hard downsizing when we moved out of Seaholme, but I see that the journey has a way to go. It is quite interesting watching my own head grappling with the challenge of a) getting rid of things, and b) not aquiring more things.  

On Facebook market place today there was an ad for a CLC Chester Yawl, a boat I have thought about building over the years, on a nice trailer, in beautiful condition, at a bargain price.  Sigh.  I tell myself I have little Barca if I want some rowing exercise,  but somehow a part of me is utterly unconvinced.

Anyway, speaking of Barca, it was a lovely quiet day for the last WBA sailing day at Albert Park Lake, and I tried out Barca with a new, longer, larger sculling oar.  The whole arrangement worked very well, I have cracked over the transom sculling. I could even look forwards and the muscle memory was sufficient to keep the sculling action moving. 

I hope I can get try a longer trip with the SCAMP towing Barca soon.  It looks like there will be a hiatus in the building works for a few months while we get Planning and Building Permits for the next phase, so maybe some opportunities coming up if the weather  cooperates and other commitments allow. 

Sail and oar and scull

 The weather last week was seriously grim, with rain, black skies, and gale force winds. There was a king tide to boot, so lots of sobering high water levels. That sort of weather, where you can't sleep because of the tempest outside, and you can't do much during the day because you will get soaked and possibly squashed by a flying object, always feels a bit end of days.  But, as always, it passes, and the world afterwards feels scrubbed and benign. This morning was blue skies and sunshine and light winds, too good not to engage with somehow. I walked Barca down to the little launch spot at the end of Williamstown beach, put Oz in his life jacket and sculled off in front of a small crowd who had suddenly gathered. It was all going rather well till I encountered a large flat rock just below the water about 50 metres off the beach. We hit hard enough for Barca to get well stuck. Pride cometh before a fall and all that. 

Once free and round the corner I could relax a bit and work on my sculling. I was using a broad faced nylon paddle with a tubular aluminium shaft that came with the Sevylor Tahiti inflatable canoe long long ago. It sort of works. I sculled into and out of the little harbour of Williamstown angling club without hitting anything, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Switching over to rowing was a relief, and we had a nice row along the coast admiring the marine growth over the rocks below the surface. It certainly looks very healthy, lots of bright green growth of all shapes and sizes.

I think Barca makes a distinct contribution to the general good humour of the world. Back on the beach, I had a nice chat to a few people who were taken with Barca's charm, and Oz had a good old bark and splash about with a red setter who was being taken for a swim by her owners. 

Once I got home, I made some modifications to the trailer, which hopefully will stop the boat jumping off every second bump. While I was on a roll, I pushed on with the tasks outstanding to convert Barca into a sailing boat. I was looking at some pictures of the Australian Sailfish - there is one going for free in the WBA newsletter - and I figure if people can sail them, surely I can sail Barca. I finished off the various bits as it was getting dark. I think I will add the Rola Portata bags like I used to use on the Skerry, and definitely wear my dry suit, as that water is getting mighty cold. 

First off I will try with the old poly tarp sail. If it sort of works I might spring for an aluminum mast and a nice Really Simple Sails sail. Or I could make a better poly tarp sail.  It would be great to have a sail boat I can fit in the back of the car! 

The most dangerous things on a small boat

 At our last SCAMP sail at St Leonards, a sail round Corio Bay looked like a good idea.  The forecast for Monday/Tuesday last week looked fairly good so we tried for that.  As with all group endeavours various impediments and commitments impacted availabity of different members of the fleet.

Chris and Stephen and I launched at St Helens Monday.  Not much wind to start with, but it was a good photo op.

We got a bit of breeze and sailed to the wave attenuation barrier, swaggered round a bit and had a coffee then sailed back over the Lime Burners Bay /The lagoon on the north side of Corio Bay.  Stephen got good wind or current or who knows what, and managed to get to the buoys leading in well before us, but had to get home.  Chris and I sailed in, Chris tied up to the visitors buoy, I rowed in close to shore and anchored.  Andrew in his Sunmaid came in after dark and tied up to the club jetty. 

It was a peaceful if chilly night. Next morning was super foggy. I had arranged to meet Geoff who was coming from Learmonth and to give Tony a crew position on Anjevi.  I recall a saying that the most dangerous things on a yacht are a watch and a calendar, and having arranged to meet the chaps at St Helens at 10 made me decide that the fog was clearing, which it wasn't.  In fact it got thicker. We crept along at a couple of knots, hearing all sorts of noises in the fog, and half expecting a freighter or a fishing boat to appear out of the fog and run us over. I had the fog horn ready to make one last blast of protest, but luckily didn't need it.  We got to St Helens  Geoff and Michael rigged and launched their boats, so we sort of felt that we had to go somewhere.  We headed off back to the wave attenuation barrier, but the fog got thicker, and Geoff lost touch with the rest of the fleet. Luckily Chris saw what was happening before they vanished into the murk, and turned back to help them back to St Helens.  The rest of us made it to the barrier, the sun came out and we had another coffee in the sun. 

There was a bit of breeze and visibility a bit better, so we headed off in a South Easterly direction but all too soon the fog rolled back in, thicker than ever.   I headed along the bearing that I had last seen the other two boats, and luckily found them anchored and rafted up for lunch.  We joined them and as the fog cleared found that we were anchored just off the big rock that sits outside the Limeburners Point ramp, much to the amusement of the stink boat owners no doubt.  The fog getting back seemed even thicker, I could barely see the jetty as I crept past the breakwater back at St Helens. 

Here's my video from the day, with footage from Chris and Stephen.  

It certainly had its highlights as an adventure, but on reflection, the pressures of sailing with multiple people led me to do things I would not have done had I been by myself.  I think wisdom would have been to just prop at Lime Burners Bay and read a book, or maybe do some gentle exploring up the creek.  The sky did eventually clear after 3.

Whatever, there definitely were some highlights.  I loved beating up the narrow channel into Lime Burners Bay

Salty

 Some very nautical looking chaps in a photo from the latest advertising for the AWBF. This was waiting to get to land as we shuffled the boats at the end of the TN raid. 

EOIs for the 27 raid now open, but my attempts to get a leave pass have not gone well so far so probably this was my last Raid.

I had four consecutive days of boaty activities this week. Saturday was  Howard Rice's presentation at APYC. Stephen and I brought our scamps for some background colour. Amazing to meet Howard. The day went well I thought.

Next day was WBA Werribee River Sailing Day.  Just finished video:

Next day, fix hub on trailer then drive down to St Leonards to stay with Tony, a SCAMP fan. Next day we launched from the yacht club, sailed to West Channel mark then to Edwards Point. A top day, but I was tired at the end of all that!

It gets better from here

 It gets better from here, right?

I was listening to the Nano cruising podcast interview with Luck Mehl, packrafting guru who has completed some amazing expeditions.https://open.spotify.com/episode/7toriOinWQ7y6PnYypYrXc?si=knBUm08oQcOgXAUJGNMjxw&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A5CeANWhuMbM7EhX6s0npwn.  He said, one big lesson from his expeditions was "it always gets better". 

I was telling myself that yesterday morning when I tripped and fell heavily on my side. Bruised hip, sore wrist, but nothing broken luckily. 

So, I am sure, it always gets better, hopefully we can get the subfloor finished next week and the floors can start going in, which will be a huge boost.

Sold

 

Much to our relief, our house found a buyer, at a price we were happy with, before auction. It was a cliff hanger, but looks like we got there. Now we need to keep the house watered and mowed and neat till settlement, early April, and that chapter will be closed.

Getting to here was a huge effort, and we are deeply tired. But now the pressure is off a bit, we have been tentatively started doing other things. I launched Barca from one end of Williamstown beach, rowed with Oz to explore the little anglers club harbour, then down to Jawbone. The wind was South east, so it was a bit of a slog getting back and poor oz got a bit wet from the spray. We met Anne at the kiosk for lunch, then I rowed back to the bike trailer.

It was good timing, as Jess and Harriet came over for a visit just after we got home, and I was able to continue my cunning program to imprint boats onto Harriet's impressionable consciousness. 

Chris kindly invited me along for a Stornoway expedition from Werribbee South down to West Channel Pile - 28 nautical miles and a real passage making sail.

That boat really chews up the distance, it would have been a much longer day in the SCAMP.  But a bit more comfortable I rekon. I have managed to get two SCAMP sails in as well. One with some other Welsford boats ...

And one with Stephen. 

This last outing was testing out Williamstown Sailing club jetty, which is excellent. Lots of potential there. I just need the time and the energy to take advantage of what is on my doorstep.

The last phase of moving and disposal coming up, and hopefully we can get moving with fixing Cole street, and I can get back sailing. It is the Paynesville Classic Boat Rally and Raid this week, which adds an edge of awareness of missing out on lots of good sailing. Hey ho. It will be very welcome when we can really get back out there.