Sacrifice to Poseidon

 

Gerard in his Shimmy 12, and Oz and I in "Kirsty Ann" the trusty Core Sound, thought we'd squeeze in one more sail before the New Year. The forecast was for SW winds  to 15 knots kicking up to round 20 in the afternoon. The fishing and jet ski fraternities must have read the forecast, and Altona ramp was blessedly quiet.

Gerard suggested that we should sail over to the mouth of Kororoit Creek. It was a bit after low tide when we got there, and most of the sandbars were covered. I got there first, and anchored a few meters off the sandbar. Thanks to the flat bottom and kick up rudder of the Core Sound, this was no issue, the boat was riding head to wind obediently in the chop in a sufficient number of centimeters of water under its transome. The Shimmy with its longer deeper keel was more problematic. We anchored it further out, but still that keel hung rudder looked like it was pounding in the chop, so we made the fateful decision to remove the rudder so we could enjoy lunch on the sandbar. When it came time to leave there was no way we could devise to get that rudder back on. Blow up beach rollers probably work on a beach but we couldn't get one under the boat in the swell. Turning boat stern to wind just encouraged waves to break over transoms and get water into the boat. The transome was plunging up and down and while trying to get that bottom pin aligned, Gerard coped a whack on the side of the head and started bleeding. There was a distinct feeling of things going pear shaped. As with all good problem solving, if at first you don't succeed,  give up. I held the boat in deeper water, Gerard started his outboard and after one tense interlude where the engine cut out, motored back to the safe harbor without further incident.

I raised sail, retrieved anchor, and clawed off into deeper water with rudder and centre board both up, fantastic how the cat ketch can do that. The predicted increase in wind strength was coming through by this stage, and it was a rollicking good sail back, lots of hiking out and feathering of the mainsail required.

We retrieved boats easily and apart from a brief wrestle the the masts - the windage on the masts in stronger winds makes lowering them a bit tricky - got them ready for the road.

I realised later that in all the excitement at the creek mouth that I had dropped my Christmas present, a gopro Silver 7. I hope this sacrifice to Poseidon will ensure good safe sailing in the year to come.

So, some valuable lessons learned.

1. Make sure everything is tied on all the time: you just never know when things might change and you will be distracted

2. Don't assume other craft have the same capabilities as yours does. Sailing in company requires a greater awareness of how conditions might affect the other boats.

But it was a good adventure. 

Boxing day

 

Not much wind to start with. Andrew's son Oliver took this photo of us, with photobombing seagull, trying to get out over the sandbar with an almost non existent northerly.

One we got out near the reef, the wind switched round to southerly and filled in for a nice sail. I was testing my new gopro 7 that Santa brought. 4k generates wacking great files and my computer can't cope. You change one thing, then a host of other changes that you had imagined are suddenly required. De Quincy observed much the same thing in the 19th century. The moral is, be careful what you change, or perhaps  even better, don't change anything.

I am indebted, in many ways, but in this particular instance, to the inimitable Webb Chiles for this link: https://sailinganarchy.com/2020/12/24/92013/

I like the idea of sailing to a destination, turning round and coming back. Not quite "sailing to nowhere", as the article describes it, it is more purposeful sailing without the destination being the main driver.

Most photogenic ever

Sandra sent though some photos from the other day, with the caption "the most photogenic boat ever". Not sure about that, but perhaps most photogenic boat in Altona bay is about right. Kirsty Ann looks good with her new topsides, and interesting to see her with four blokes and a dog onboard. 

 

The good news is that the ply for my next boat, a Skerry, has turned up after months sitting in a container at the docks. The bad news is I drilled a hole in my thumb while repairing the Sabre mast. Anne has put a ban on power tool use till I can use that opposing thumb. Amazing how useless you feel when you can't use your thumb!

Got out with Daniel in the two Mirrors Saturday for a splendid sail, wonderful little boats!

Mayoral sailing

 

Sometimes you just never know what a day on the water holds in store. Yesterday I arranged to meet Chuck down at AYC to collect a rivet gun to repair the Sabre's mast. There was a council function on, and the plan was for the mayor and media chap to live stream their part of an online function while sailing. But the barbecue and various boats had blocked in access to the club dinghies, and as I sailed up in the Core Sound at the moment, Oz and I had some unexpected guests. Chuck came to make sure I did not hijack them. It was quite surreal, but our new mayor seems like a genuinely nice person, and Ozzie liked him.

After we dropped off the official party Oz and I helped Sandra and Federico rig up, Oz tried his luck getting some bacon from the function, and had some success I heard later, and we headed out again for the pier reef mark loop. Light airs, we got left behind quickly by the fast boats.

After lunch the wind was kicking up, and I put the first reef in main and mizzen. Wind around 20 knots, the core sound was handling the increasingly boisterous conditions fine, but I got soaked pretty quickly by the spray, and as I was just in shorts and shirt, I started to get cold, so I dropped main and we broad reached home under reefed mizzen at 4 to 5 knots. 

It was blowing hard and holding the boat to walk it along the jetty, and then taking the masts down, were both a bit challenging. But we didn't break anything and home tired but happy after an interesting day. 

I am going to have a push on decluttering the boat, there is too much stuff collected on there and it is less shipshape than it might be. Lovely boat though ...

I see from my log book that this was my 52nd sailing day for 2020. At least the average is one sail a week, not too bad given the lockdowns and various distractions.

Breaking bad

 A grand day for the AYC short course racing today, sunny blue skies and 15 to 20 knots on the water. Getting down early I discovered I had forgotten my watch, which does help with the starts, so I rigged and headed off home one tha dahon, but the rear tyre blew out half way home. A slower round trip than anticipated but we got home and back in plenty of time for the first race. 

I managed not to come last in any of the three morning races, and I was improving I think. I beat four other sabres in the last race, very satisfying.

I was getting ready to head out again for the next three races after lunch, and was tightening the down haul, when there was a mighty  bang, and the haliyard sheave at the top of the mast carried away. 

The mast is supposed to be watertight but the wood was sodden, and the aluminum had corroded badly. The consensus of knowledgeable chaps at the club was that a fix was possible. 

That was the end of my racing for the day, but it was a great day out.

I used the time to glue up my binocular/radio holding box for the Core Sound. It will look something like this:

Too easy

 Federico suggested getting out today. I spent hours trying to decide which boat to take -the downside of owning too many boats. Eventually I settled on the Sabre, which proved to be a good choice. As it lives down at the club house, I can ride down and get it in the water in a bit over thirty minutes, almost too easy.

Federico had his shiny Impulse, Andrew had his Laser, so they both vanished off into the distance pretty quickly. It was a lovely sailing morning though, and I was pleased just to be out. I spent the last 20 minutes before I came back in deliberately getting into irons and experimenting with methods of getting going again. Still not great at deliberately choosing a particular tack, but getting better. The big discovery of the morning was that I can sail the Sabre backwards, quite fast, for an indefinite period. And sort of steer in a given direction while reversing.  Might be a good party trick one day.