Christmas 2022

 

Christmas eve, nice weather, Chris S was getting Ysolde out for a quick sail from Werribee South so I got over there with the Skerry. On the water by 9. Wind West South West.

The wind kicked up a bit and we put in a reef. I could just about keep up with Ysolde unreefed, but after we each put in a reef, i was much slower.

We sailed in quite close to shore and anchored. Mike's 1 kg Cooper anchor holds the boat in those conditions, somewhat to my surprise.

I sailed back in, and for once did a nice approach to the jetty, dropped sail a couple of boat lengths off, and coasted up nicely to a stop. Two blokes hanging about were very impressed, nice to have an audience when things go right. Usually there are only audiences for disasters.

De-rigging was not quite so pleasant. A couple of truly obnoxious blokes pulled up beside me, but at least I was not encouraged to dawdle. Home by 1 and into tidying up for the Christmas day celebrations.

The family gave me a 360 camera for Christmas Birthday. It needs a faster sd card than I possess, so a brief hiatus till one is acquired. In the modern way, no user manual, which I find annoying, but hopefully I can puzzle it out.

A very pleasant Christmas day tho. Lovely weather, lovely family, lots of feasting and good humour. I feel extremely lucky.

Dumb Joe almost

 

Jim and Chris who are doing the TN launched their Lugger at Altona with Penny this morning. I got down with the Skerry.  A beautiful sailing day with a steady 10 knots Southerly. We sailed over to Point Cook. I was a head and headed for the beach there but the sea birds looked so peaceful and the water was shallow which I knew the Lugger wouldn't like, so I headed back out again almost running over a big banjo shark. We drifted and had lunch, then made an attempt to get round Dumb Joe cardinal mark.

It was directly up wind though, and we got discouraged and ran back for home. 13.4 NM for the day.

The good news is that the Skerry performed very creditably relative to the Lugger, faster on all points of sail and pointing about as well. So I might not be the TN lantern rouge.

A good day, my kind of sailing.

Testing testing

Sea trials of Toqeedo bracket on the Skerry were successful in so far as we did not capsize, sink or do any damage to the boat or engine or crew. There is a distinct list to Port, the engine side, but I can counteract that with my weight once I am in the boat. There was a fair old chop and a bit of wind, and the rudder is not sufficient to steer into a choppy headwind. I had to row to keep our heading. But we could move along about 2.4 knots bang into the wind. I anchored, and took battery and engine off. Not much buoyancy back there and it was tricky getting them off ... I don't think I could put the engine on in any sort of seaway. So, on balance, I think I might leave the engine out of the equation. Even with electric,life is much simpler without engines. 

I guess I should give it another go, and tidy up the bracket so it is not such an eyesore. The wind at Laverton was gusting 18-19 knots while I was out so I guess we were doing pretty well to be moving at over 2 knots. Golly I am tired tonight tho! I will have to be careful to conserve energy on the Tawe Nunnugah... minimum possible rowing.

Collie Nose's last sail

 Since the sailing day on the Lake, Ozzie has been diagnosed with "Collie Nose", DLE, a congenital,  abnormal reaction to sunlight. It manifests as a crusty nose, with a lot of congestion, and discolouration around the nostrils. Poor boy has been sneezing and snoring something awful. He is taking cortisone and antibiotics and it is clearing up, but we have to keep him out of the sun. So he is retiring as sea dog. I will miss him.