Close shave

 I haven't had the Skerry out sailing for a while, and the weather forecast looked ok for today. I got down round 10.30, unloaded and wheeled the boat out on the sandbar to rig. I  usually rig on the grass, but I thought Oz could have a bit more of a run around.  By the time I had rigged one trolley wheel had sunk in the sand. I put Oz in, slide the boat off at an angle, and went to fold up the trolley. When I looked again, the boat was heading off at an alarming speed. I managed to run after it and grab it. It would have been a bad situation if it had got away from me. My phone and vhf were in a waterproof grab bag tied to the boat. It was cold today, almost no fishing boats around. I am not sure what I would have done. Maybe yell for Oz to jump off, but I am not sure if he would have.

On the plus side, I was wearing my drysuit. I would have got soaked and cold otherwise. And, after the inauspicious beginning, we had a good, brisk sail over to T28 and back. No seal home today. Off Pooint Gellibrand we were hooting along at nearly 6 knots.

I don't know if I am getting sillier as I get older, or just having a run of not great luck. Either way, somehow I need to be extra careful.

Go West

 Chris and I got out in our respective boats on Wednesday from Werribee South. The wind was blowing north westerly, almost at right angles to the coast. I wanted to go west, Chris wanted to go East towards Point Cook. 

When we came to head home, the wind was bang on the nose. It took hours of tacking to get home again. 

I tried a few new things: my drysuit, the vhf radio, and the sea anchor. All worked well. 

I had some trouble putting the reef in the main. Perhaps because the dodger was up, I had difficulty putting enough tension on the clew,the boat kept wanting to sail off when I would pull the tensioning line. I have tweaked the set up, by adding a saddle on the sprit so I am pulling backwards not forwards.  

A long day, but it was beautiful out on the water. 

Quiet day on Altona Bay

Following the theory that you need to get back on the horse that has thrown you, Chris and I went for a sail in the Core Sound on Saturday.  It was a lovely, sunny, calm winter's day.

We sailed and rowed very slowly over to the mouth of Kororoit creek, beached, and had a cuppa.  Mild drama when I realised I had got the tide wrong, and we were about 45 minutes BEFORE low tide, not after, but the boat is so light we managed to slide it into enough water to sail off. 

We sailed very slowly over towards Altona Pier, then Chris demonstrated impressive sculling skills to get us back past the red stick, where we dropped sail, started the Torqeedo and motored the last few hundred metres back into the safe harbour.  It was very quiet.  I was home having a cuppa by 3.

All in all it was a low key, relaxing outing.  My kind of sailing.

Caught out

 I had been promising to go out on Chris's Stornoway for a while, Gerard couldn't make it, so I agreed to meet Chris at the Warmies on Tuesday and ship as crew on his boat "Ysolde", a Stornaway18.  The weather forecast looked ok, the green arrows on Willy weather all showing round 10 knot northerlies for much of the day.

We actually got caught out off St Kilda when the wind turned.  I have been running through lots of postmortem dissections in my head since, as to what we could have, might have, and should have done.  It certainly was a serious learning experience, and I have made a list of personal resolutions to hopefully avoid any repetition.

The upside was the opportunity for some extraordinary wildlife encounters.  A pod of dolphins swam with us for over 10 minutes.  After they moved on, a seal took over, and seemed almost to be guiding us back to Williamstown.  

We tacked back and forth outside the breakwater at Williamstown.  A large red tanker, the Vide Casiopia, was moored just behind the breakwater.  It took us three long tacks to move the length of the boat. With jib and main, the Stornoway is not great to windward especiallyinto that sort of wind and chop.. We were getting cold, and a bit worried that the weather might get worse still.  I had suggested, half in jest, that we could always run for Altona, and in the end, that was what we did.  I stayed with the boat, while Anne drove Chris round to collect his car and trailer. I put the spray dodger up, huddled down behind it with the end of my thermos of tea, and wondered about hypothermia.  

Rafting up

 Queens Birthday Monday I was walking Oz down by the Altona Yacht club, and saw much to my delight Peregrina my old Mirror all rigged up on the lawn waiting to be launched.  I bumped into Campbell who was getting his Mirror ready to take out his kids, Mary and Duncan, and there was another boat, a Spitfire, with another Dad and two kids, getting ready to get out.  I went home, and did a rapid pack of the Skerry, and drove back down to launch as well.

As I was getting ready to rig up, I discovered I had forgotten rudder and centreboard!!  That will teach me to hurry.  But given the wind, or lack of, it was no big deal.  I could see the three boats bobbing around only a mile off, so I rowed over.  I gave Peregrina with a dad and lad combo a tow over to join the other boats.  The kids really enjoyed the raft up.

After a very pleasant cuppa in the sunshine, and some close interrogation by the young lad on the front of the boat in the second picture, I bid them goodbye, and rowed off to Kororoit creek mouth.  The tide was good for getting in there, and I rowed up past the boat jetty of the Angling club, and out again.  It was a really nice day on the water.

Mission accomplished

 

A break in the weather and low tide at a sensible time yesterday,so we got the Skerry out from the local beach and rowed over  to see if we could extract the rusting shopping trolley from the mouth of Skeleton Creek. Succeeded but we both got wet feet and Oz and Anne got cold just sitting. 

It was round 6 miles rowing. Could I row as far again, then do that the next day and every day for the week after? Hmmm. Probably not. Is that what the Tawe Nunnugah would be like? Probably yes.