One discovery from the recent Gippsland lakes trip was how useful Navionics on a tablet can be, especially navigating waters you are not super familiar with. I have an old tablet with a cracked screen so I thought I'd give it a try, and it worked well. Except in the energetic tacking up Bunga Arm, the tablet, along with everything else not secured firmly, tended to slide from side to side with a hearty crunch each tack.
I am sure there are sophisticated off the shelf holders but thanks to a few bits of scrap ply - of which I have no shortage - and a few screws and I have a holder that can be held securely on the hook on the Port side bulkhead #4. I hope this will work OK for fine weather, and it should be sheltered there from spray and even light drizzle. If it really starts raining I cut the backing piece to size so it fits between the hatches on Bulkhead #3.
At the top, the holder hooks onto the bungey that runs across the cuddy, (which is also useful for hanging other things you don’t want wandering around). At the bottom there is a toggle piece that rotates in the mast box cutout and locks the bottom so it won't want to swing round.
Note also the net shelf within the hatch itself, which makes much better use of the available storage space towards the top of the enclosed cuddy space.
These additions are yet to be given any sea trials, but I am hopeful they will work. One of the nice things about small boats, the little evolutions and enhancements make the boat more adapted to how you actually use it.
Meanwhile, looks like Snapper season is upon us. The Altona ramp was chockers today, a nice day on a weekend. I will have to track how it goes midweek.
I managed to arrange 4 days away mid October. Anne very kindly agreed to mind Ozzie and Maggie. Chris and I arranged to meet at the King Street ramp in Paynesville on the 15th. It was a bit of a circus preparing to get out the door, but I was on the road by 7 and actually got down to Paynesville fairly easily.
Paynesville is a very boaty place. I think everyone clocks which boat is where and who is doing what. A video of us sailing down McMillans Strait popped up on Facebook that night. And a chap from a nearby boat yard came over, knew what a SCAMP was, and asked lots of shrewd questions. He kindly offered to keep an eye on our trailers if we parked near his yard... don't know if he did or not, but the trailers were still there when we returned a few days later.
There was quite a stiff breeze, blowing into that jetty area more from the left hand side of the picture. what I should have done was use a stern spring line to move the bow away from the jetty, and get revs at a steady level for heading out before letting the line slip. Instead, I cast off stern, had a forward spring line, which with the wind pushed the nose sharply to starboard. The helm was not enough to counteract that, I gave the engine some revs in the hope I would get some steerage way, but we hurtled towards that jetty on the right of the pic. I hit reverse hard, which stopped us before we hit, but suddenly we were heading sternwards towards the other side of the jetty we had just left. I hit forward again, and we just squeaked by and out, without actually contacting anything. Talk about bone head boaters! I hope no one was videoing that one. Well, I was, but that footage will be kept a well guarded secret.
But, once out in the strait, with the sail up, life got a whole lot better. We had a sporty sail over to Duck Arm, and picked up a couple of public moorings tucked away round behind the spit. I was seriously tired by the time we tied up though. Here's Part 1 of my video of the trip that covers the first day, and includes Peter Medling's footage of us.
Despite being tired, I didn't sleep super well. There was a fair bit of hooting and shrieking from the school camps on the other side of the bay but eventually I passed out. Next day was glorious, we were up at first light and ghosting out at 0730. The sail over to the Aurora Channel was memorably pleasant, the motoring up the channel less so. By the time we got to the top of Bunga Arm, the wind had kicked up a bit, and some energetic tacking was required to get up the Arm to land at a lovely little cove in front of Pelican Camping area. After some shore leave, and setting up camp on the boats, I had an afternoon nap, which made up for the lack of sleep the night before. While I was asleep, the weather changed, and a cold front was starting to move over. It rained overnight, and we packed up and set off in steady rain. Living the dinghy cruising dream indeed. It was good fun. The wind was light but in the right direction for us to sail through all the convolutions of the channel, and we got back to Paynesville easily. The wind had just about died, but what wind there was was coming directly down the strait, and it felt like a current was running against us, so after a half hearted attempt to tack back to the ramp, we downed sail, fired up the torqeedos and cruised back to the ramp. Here's Part 2 which covers the second and third days:
Back at the ramp we were greeted by Scotty Wells, a local who was very interested in building a SCAMP. He saw us sailing back past Montague Point, figured we were heading back to the ramp, and came over specially to have a look at Anjevi and have a chat. I was a bit distracted, and had only an old worn out pair of crocs to wear on my feet. The tread had long since worn off them, and, while trying to balance on the trailer to pull the nose of the boat on, my feet slipped out from beneath me and I went into the water butt first. No harm done except to my pride. The chest high waterproof trousers I was wearing kept my butt dry which was a bonus.
Chris made a really nice video of the trip as well.
All in all it was a fantastic trip, genuinely living the dream of dinghy cruising. I hope I can get back down there again soon.
The highlight of an otherwise rather dud end to the month has been Ozzie's achievement of the Practical Boat Owner "Seadog of the month" award. Richly deserved, well done Ozzie. Paul Davison, a UK SCAMP builder, kindly sent me the page.
The weather has been mighty unsettled and we have been lucky to get one good sailing day a week, and life has organised itself so that something has come along to stop me sailing on that good day.
I did get out from Black Rock for a bumpy sail with Gavan as crew and Peter in Pitthirrit for company. Black Rock ramp is exposed to Westerlies and was horribly weedy - I managed to put a dent in the bow of Anjevi, coat the trailer in sticky weed that took hours to wash off, and make a hash of retrieving the boat. I won't be hurrying back to Black Rock. But Peter made a nice video of the sail.
I got out for a solo sail a few days later, to test a new arrangement for the third reef. The reefing worked fine, but somewhere along the line the boom must have hit the pole I had just replaced that I used to fly my WBA burgee from the rudder. Both pole and burgee vanished somewhere into Altona Bay, another sacrifice to Neptune. Hey ho. I have been using the down time to do some work on the SCAMP. I took the rudder out and tried some re-faring after long consultations on fluid dynamics with my brother Mike. Fingers crossed I have fixed the vibration. And I patched up the ding in the bow from the encounter with the concrete pylon at Black Rock jetty, and added a new hatch rear starboard side cockpit seat so I can keep anchor rode there.
I am laid low at the moment with some truly nasty bug, not Covid if I am doing the test right, but it feels like it. Hopefully I can bounce back, the weather will improve, and I can get some sailing in over October.
The equinoctial gales have been on full blast last couple of weeks. Every day has been blue arrows on the weather app, and we've had gusts up to 120 km per hour here, good for the fence repairers' businesses. The nature strips are full of sawn up blown down fences and tree boughs broken off. Must be tough if you live in trees. We found two baby ring tail possums over the last week, one alive which we took to the vets. The nice receptionist said ours was the fourth for the day. The other ring tail, poor little thing, was dead. Definitely not a good season to be a tree dweller.
We seized the opportunity to get out on the one ok day in between maelsroms. Chris in "Ysolde", Peter in "Pitthirrit", Ian in "Westy" and me in "Anjevi" with Oz. It was a splendid sail over to Point Cook for lunch, complete was a dolphin visit, and a good sail back. The wind eased off but the sun came out as compensation. Peter made a lovely video of the day. The SCAMP looks good, and indeed it is fun to sail.
I seem to have lost my video making mojo. I tried my spar buoy camera arrangement out, and made everyone sail round it, but when I got home I discovered I had turned it off just as I was putting it in the water. I have a couple of seconds of me saying "alright" and the buoy going over the side, and that's all. My other video camera, for long shots, had a flat battery. And I left the gopro running and used up its battery taking a very long video of clouds and not much else. I will have to try harder.
Ian in "Westy" is an experienced catamaran sailor but hasn't done a lot of dinghy cruising. He relies on outboard engine to get into and out of the safe harbour in his Cal 14. His latest petrol outboard (his third in recent times) refused to start. I persuaded him to sail out under jib alone and promised to give him a tow back in. Tow back in went OK, but on the basis that no good deed should go unpunished, in the excitement of organising the towline my handy dandy wind indicator jumped overboard and sank. And then I stood on my WBA pennant staff and broke it ... but it was getting on time to replace it as I have been progressively breaking bits off it and it's been getting shorter and shorter. Despite minor casualties, it was a thoroughly enjoyable sail. It looks like the weather might be improving a bit for next week too.
About a week ago, I was shuffling cars and boats, getting organised to get out next morning for a sail, when I managed to crunch my rib cage on the gunnel of the Skerry. An xray says no cracks or broken bones, apparently I have torn the muscle between my ribs. My GP calls this condition wheelie bin rib, quite common as people reach over into their wheelie bins to retrieve something they have dropped in there in error.
Either as I get older, I do sillier things, or my frame is less able to withstand the silly things I do, or both. Better try and be more careful from here on in.
It is painful enough to wake me up each time I roll over. Which means I haven't been sleeping so well. The good news is it will get resolve in about 6 weeks. I cunningly timed this to coincide with what looks like a long spell of windy weather,so I am not missing much. And I think I can sail ok when the next good day comes along. I managed to row Leigh's Mirror ok on Sunday at the WBA sailing day.
Count down on for TN2025 ... I put a few way points in the gps tonight and Peter sent charts with courses marked on them, both which might be good if things get exciting. Belt and braces. I don't expect we will be ahead of the fleet in the SCAMP though, unlike last time in the Skerry. But we might be so far behind we will have to find our own way.
Here's a pic taken by Mark or Nick on "Blackboat" in 2023. Their caption:"Derry leading the fleet past The Images". That was a splendid, moderately terrifying sail alright!
We have been getting some almost Spring-like days, in between cold fronts that sweep through and take us back to Winter. The fates aligned so that Chris and Gerard and I had a free day on one of the warm, balmy days, and we seized the opportunity to get out for a sail from Werribee South. With one thing and another, it had seemed like a long time between sails.
We were on the water by 10. The alleged Northerly has swung quite East, and was blowing close to down the Channel, so Chris and Gerard used their Torqeedos to get out to clear water. Being an incorrigible smart arse, I decided to tack out of the river, which of course had consequences.
Chris as always took some nice footage, here is a very edited view of the day. Watch closely and see if you can spot what the price of my under sail exit from the river was.
The low water is mighty low on either side of the channel, and I suspect, on one of the tacks, I must have been a bit over ambitious, and caused the rudder quick release to quick release itself. But somehow, in the excitement, I didn't notice. Well, I knew something was out of balance, and kept trying to adjust the bleater to move the centre of effort of the sail to correct the weather helm. Then I suspected I was just over powered, so I put in a reef. Which is when Mark from the WBA came up behind me on a stonking great boat and gleefully captured us with the rudder in full bounce. Dammit. At least I was sailing, they were just burning diesel.
I eventually twigged and fixed it. The helm feels wonderfully better with the rudder down.
Chris anchored past Wyndham Harbour, off one of the break water walls to the east, which should have been a bit sheltered according to the forecast but wasn't. After a huge amount of stuffing around, getting lines and fenders arranged, I was just about to fang into a much needed lunch, when it became clear we were dragging. Indeed there was a large ball of weed on the anchor when Chris retrieved it. The wind was still strong as we disentangled, got sail up and got moving, providing some good free entertainment for a person sitting on the beach. Once we started heading back to the River the wind eased right off. There was a rain storm over Geelong, and it felt a bit ominous, but we got back into the river fine, and moored up to one of the visitor moorings to enjoy a late lunch.
It was a good outing, apart from the rudder fiasco. The new Torqeedo mount is ugly as sin but it works fine and feels solid, so I will just have to avert my eyes from it. It is all learning and evolving. I got a few ideas for a few more little tweaks that I have been adding over the last few days, namely a more robust and quickly rigged arrangement for the rear mast/sail transport carrier, and some hooks and bungey to hold my oars out of the water when they are in the rowlocks. Looking forward to testing them out soon.
About two weeks ago there was a hint of spring weather. A rising of the sap, a rush of blood to the head, I thought I had better get stuck into the garden which has been sadly neglected. I mowed the lawn, then without thinking, twisted, tried to pick the lawn mower up to put it away, and did my back in. I seem to do this every couple of years. Oh well. The back seems to get better one day, then it plays up again the next. It has slowed me down a bit. But in between I have managed a few outings.
I did manage to get out with Andrew for the relaunching of his Red Jacket.
Always interesting trying to work out how to rig a boat. You can see me, in this photo taken by Hahn, cheerfully getting ready to raise the jib with the spinnaker halyard. But we eventually sorted out a reasonable set up. Luckily it was a very light airs day. We got a visit from a big pod of dolphins, a good omen for the relaunch.
One of my favourite youtube channels is "Simon Bloke in the Woods". Part of his technique involves putting his camera on a tripod somewhere, walking into or out of view, repeat ... lots of times. It is artlessly obvious, but I find it tricks the brain into going along with the illusion. The trouble with sailing is that the point of view is largely trapped on the boat. There are options of course, but how nice would it be to be able to put a camera outside the boat, like on a tripod?
While I have been creaking around with my back, I finished off my prototype spar buoy camera float. It is a length of conduit, with lead sinkers in the bottom, a float in the top third, and a wood plug with a screw thread for the camera in the top. The red buoy and bit of rope is to make a good target and something to hook onto with the boat hook.
I tested it first with the old Flip camera, to see that the buoyancy was adequate - I didn't want my expensive 360 camera sinking to the bottom if I could help it.
It floated ok, but the unstabilized footage from the Flip was distinctly sea sick making. But it showed the spar buoy could support the weight of the camera ok, so I tried again with the 360. The footage looks promising.
After a few more days, cabin fever was setting in and I persuaded myself my back was feeling better. What looked like a window of opportunity for a sail came up on Tuesday. The BOM was forecasting 10-12 knot North Westerlies. I got caught up with another project Monday (putting in a photo essay on building the SCAMP for Practical Boat Owner as part of my campaign to get Ozzie in there as Sea Dog of the month) so I didn't have time to pack or get ready. Tuesday morning I was more than usually stupid packing up. I forgot my sea boots. I forgot the spar buoy, the purpose of the whole exercise, though as it turned out it was probably too windy to have used it.
The weather man often underestimates North Westerlies, and this day was no exception. I should have twigged as we blew out of the harbour at about 3 knots under bare poles. Anyway we got sail up, then quickly put in the first reef, and headed over to Kororoit creek mouth. It was just past low tide, and an off shore breeze, so I figured if I did run aground on the sand bars, I would not be there long. When we got there, there was a woman with two big dogs romping along. It is a bird sanctuary there, definitely not a place for off leash dogs. Grrrrrrr. In the interests of not getting my blood pressure up, I gybed around, and tested the ability of the SCAMP to steer with both rudder and centreboard up. We scooted over the shallows leaving two furrows behind in the sand, and managed to sail broadly where we needed to go. Clever little boat.
I ran down past the Jaw Bone, thinking of maybe a run along the coast to T21 to visit the seal, but I could feel the wind gusts getting stronger. At last the voice of common sense got through, and I put in the second reef, and turned for the beat back to Altona. Along the way, the wind really piped up. I was thinking of the third reef there for a while, but we were going ok, and I tacked in so I was sailing reasonably close the shore, which gave some shelter.
When we got to Altona harbour, the wind was really up, and straight down the channel leading in. I thought the smart thing to do would be to get the Torqeedo fired up. I put the battery on, connected remote throttle, lowered sail, engaged forward ... and my outboard bracket promptly popped out of two of the three the connectors on the transom. I had the engine almost in the water, lots of chop, wind gusting up, and us drifting off for Mount Martha. Hmmmm. I tried a few times to get the bracket to hold without success, but it was clear it was not fixable under the circumstances. There was no way I could row the SCAMP in with that wind. The only option left, I was going to have to sail in. I raised sail and let it out and while the SCAMP drifted sideways. I got the battery and throttle disconnected and the engine out of the water, put an oar in the oarlock, got fenders and lines ready, then tacked my way back.
Luckily no one else was silly enough to be going out, so there were no stink boats to dodge. There were some serious gusts coming through, but heading in to the wind, the boat speed is very controllable, and the SCAMP behaved totally reliably. We tacked up to almost touch the inner green buoy on the outer channel, which then gave a line so that we could squeak through past the rock walls on either side of the inner entrance, then a couple of tacks inside the harbour itself so we could come up to the jetty. At Laverton, wind gusts to 27 knots at 1.40, right when I was coming in. I chose the windiest time of the day for my manoeuvrer.
I had a cup of tea and some soup to get some energy for packing up. I gave Oz some soup in a bowl on the jetty. As he took the last lick of the bowl, a gust picked it up and it frizzbied off, landing right side up in the water. Last I saw of it, it was heading off to Sorrento. No way I was going to chase it.
Someone very wise (I can't remember who ) observed something along the lines that: "The sea will find out what you did wrong" . I knew that bracket was a bit dodgy, but as I was also using those connectors on the transom for my sail/mast carrying arrangement, I shied away from changing it over. Well, now I will just have to. I am grateful that it all worked out ok, I think I got off lightly this time.
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