Sunny Sunday in snapper season, and predictably the ramp is chockers. The overlow carpark has overflowed, cars and trailers everywhere. No launching for me today.
Instead I decided to try making a weight for a depth finder, a bit of copper pipe, bashed shut at one end, and filled with melted lead. My first try at smelting. It was all very exciting. I wore a mask, and stayed down wind, but I have had an odd metallic taste in my mouth since. I hope I am not lead poisoned.
I attached the old haliyard line from the Sabre, and put a mark every metre up to 5 metres. Now, when anyone accuses me of swinging the lead, I won't be able to deny it.
A huge storm blew through in the early hours, bringing down trees and scattering rubbish. That's the challenge of cruising on Port Phillip, it is hard to get a series of decent sailing days in a row.
I got the Core Sound out yesterday, with Gerard as crew, and Ian along in Westy. There was almost no wnd. I believe my moving average for the outing was round 0.8 knots,but you would need to subtract the torqeedoing out and back at round 5 knots from that. It was very pleasant.
We rafted up for morning tea, still moving at about 0.6 of a knot, perhaps backwards.
It was a nice morning to be out.
This morning, I arranged to meet Andrew with his laser and Paul with his Sabre. By contrast to the day before, the Northerly was gusting while we were setting up. My boat blew over on its trolley while still on land. Andrew decided to stay on land, Paul launched but capsized in a few feet of water.
I got out in the Skerry with the reef in. It was an exhilarating rather wet ride. Nearby BOM Laverton weather station recorded 20 and 22 knots gusts while I was out. Good to know the Skerry can handle that.
After my troubles tacking in strong winds on Sunday, I did some research on how to get out irons on your desired tack. The suggested method, push boom over to the side you want it to be on, point rudder towards it, worked a treat.
It was not as relaxing as yesterday but still fun.
It was the first WBA sailing day for ages on Sunday. The weather was not so great - 30 knot gusts at St Kilda - but parts of the lake are relatively sheltered and really nothing that bad can happen. Jim came out as ballast, and we had a few close encounters with the concrete wall on the far shore, after a fluffed tack, a hat overboard drill, a tiller overboard too, but all learning. I went out in Peter's Lapwing. I am glad I put sailtrack on the Core Sound, the rolling the sail round the mast reefing is definitely not something you would want to do on the water in a blow. Good fun though.
I arranged to meet Ian with Westy down at the ramp yesterday. It was a perfect spring morning, beautiful blue sky and light wind. Andrew from the WBA was down there with Mars. He took the photo above,for which I thank him. Andrew came out in his Laser too, but got cold I think. The laser is not what you would call a comfortable boat. Ian tried raising his spinnaker, which sent him off on a down wind tangent towards the dog beach.
It was very light airs, so I raised the staysail, and got it set on a broad reach, after a bit of faffing around. I am very glad to have a photo that shows how it sets, as it is hard to tell from on the boat. After watching me fiddle round with the staysail for a while, Anne asked:"Do you ever, you know, just go sailing?"
I was also testing the outboard bracket box for the Torqeedo. It works very well indeed. Puttering in and out, quite a way, at 4 knots, I burned up 28% of the battery, so with care I could get about 4 return trips with it. It does make everything a bit more relaxing, as it is quiet and just goes, unlike the Honda which always adds a bit of suspense, and a lot more noise. Anne likes it a lot, and enjoyed our outing.
Coming back in, we saw a pod of at least 4 dolphins, quite close by. I wonder if they were investigating the torqeedo noise. Coming into the jetty was pretty good too, a touch of reverse and we stopped right next to the cleat.
All in all a great outing, but I was seriously stuffed last night, and I have been pretty useless today. I hope I have not got out of condition.
Last year I made a terrific batch of marmalade from Seville oranges. For some unkown reason, I went and bought a pile of blood oranges this year.
I've made the batch. It is a bit a case of bad news good news, the bad news is it doesn't taste or look so great, the good news is there is plenty of it. Oh well, I guess it is good vitamin c.
I got out for a great sail in the Skerry late last week and took some great footage. As I was uploading, a bit tired and distracted, a notice flashed past on the computer monitor something like "can't load profile" but I uploaded, deleted media from camera, viewed it all and was having a great time till I went to edit. No video editor available, so I rebooted, and all media files had vanished off to that big hard drive in the sky. Oh well. So no photos from last sail.
Last time I took the Core Sound out, I felt that the Torqeedo prop was too close to the surface of the water, and definitely too close to the rudder. After a huge amount of faffing around I have built a ply outboard extending/lowering bracket, basically a box with a bit that drops over the transom. I managed to make version 1 of this just a little too small to actually tighten the outboard clamps. Version two I tried to be clever and got in a huge mess with angles all over the place. Version 3 is hopefully large enough and strong enough. I plan to test tomorrow.
My other project is making a sort of spray dodger for the Skerry. Poor Oz doesn't like getting splashed and blown around.
I am making a prototype with an old blue tarp. I am sure there are plenty of mistakes in this project also, but I am not far enough advanced to have discovered them. If the prototype works, I will make a better one from canvas.
I got out Wednesday and Friday, basing my decision on BOM forecasts of 5-10 knot winds. Instead, we got gusts round 20 knots Wednesday and 17 on Friday. Northerlies tend to be very gusty here, and given to sudden shifts in direction, so concentration and attention are required. I tried out the reef on Wednesday, and full sail yesterday. Derry the Skerry handles very assuredly, it seems to have a lot more stability than a Sabre or Mirror. There is still a touch of weather helm - when the big gusts come through I was fighting the boat wanting to round up into the wind. But I am starting to learn as muscle memory how the sail needs to be setting, and sailing is becoming more instinctive.
We sailed over to T28 to visit the seals. One was in residence swimming in the water nearby. That sail along the coast is splendid. Only two hours on the water but I felt like I had been on voyage.
A light airs day with some sunshine, and Andrew was getting out, so despite the Sunday crowds I got Derry in the water. We met Bjorn and Poppy down at the AYC ramp, which cheered Ozzie up - he likes a dash around with Poppy.
I think the sail is getting close to right. I could tack ok, and there helm seemed pretty neutral. It will be interesting to see how it goes with more wind.
We had a few brief interludes of good pressure, and recorded a max of 5.1 knots, but our average for the outing was 2.2 knots. Still, a lot easier than rowing, all that free energy!
