Gippsland Lakes 2

We arranged to rendevouz with some of the WBA boats at 9.30 off the Point King beacon. We were on the water by 8, relishing the step on convenience of a jetty mooring. The water was glassy calm, and wiser this time, I fired up the outboard and we puttered along smoothly at around 3 knots, covering the distance in less than one hour. Fantastic things outboards. When they work.

We bobbed round off Point King till we were beginning to wonder if we had misunderstood the plan, but eventually three boats appeared, including Penny and Jim in their Drascomb Lugger. We motored across Lake King, and tied up at the jetty on the West side of Shaving Point. By this time it was round 30 degrees, much more noticeable on land. Anne and I walked over the short hill into town, to buy batteries and wine for later, and had a lemon squash on the verandah of the pub.

When we got back the wind had filled in and we sailed off with the Drascomb, round Shaving Point and across Bacroft Bay. 

By the time we headed back across Lake King the wind had kicked up a bit and with it a short chop. The Core sound handled it very surely. It was almost a dead run, and when ever I saw the main loose pressure I could steer us up so we didn't gybe. We parted company at Point King, then gull winged back into Eagle Bay. Speed was 5 to 6 knots most of the way, with a top of 7 somewhere in there, no doubt surfing down a wave.

The wind was up, and I didn't feel lucky, so we started the outboard and dropped sails. I tried essentially the same manoeuvre as the day before, coming in close to shore before making a sharp turn into the wind aiming to come to stop next to the jetty. This time though, I  must have gone closer to shore, the rudder hit the bottom, flicked up and i lost steerage at the critical moment, and hit the jetty hard at an acute angle on the port front gunnel, taking out a gouge of hardwood.

The wind was blowing the boat onto the jetty and despite my best endeavours I could not work an arrangement of bollards that would hold it off. In retrospect I could have tied the nose to one of the poles nearby and the stern off the jetty, but there was a fair swell built up so that might not have worked either.

Willyweather was predicting that the wind would stay strong before increasing the next morning so I  drove the car and trailer down to the ramp, cycled home, collected Anne and Oz, and we set off into the chop for an exciting retrieval on an exposed ramp. Oz enlivened the proceedings by standing whimpering at the bow of the boat, which was pitching up and down in the waves, as I wound the boat onto the trailer. 

Next morning I cleaned and tidied the boat, and we laid low. Dinner at the Paynesville pub with the other WBA gang, then the long drive home through massive storm fronts, wind and rain on Sunday.

It was a great trip. I've patched the gunnel and revarnished it, and sent the outboard off to be serviced. I am very pleased with the Core Sound, and looking forward to more adventures.

Gippsland Lakes 1

Last weekend was the WBA weekend away down at Paynesville. As is the way with such things, the weather forecast was perfect midweek, deteriorating to apocalyptic over the weekend. I have been hankering to get the Core Sound down to the Lakes, so I decided to time shift and go down early - that flexibility is one of the blessings of retirement.

My original plan was to take a tent and camp, but Anne decided that she would like to come, and we managed to find a house, with a jetty at the bottom of the garden, in Eagle bay round the corner from Paynesville.

We drove down Tuesday, and there was a drive and beach next to the jetty, so I decided to rig the boat there, and try launching next morning. Which proved to be one of those dumb ideas. The trailer wheels sank into the soft sand before the boat was in enough water to float off. But after a lot of heaving and strong language I got it launched, tied up to the jetty, the trailer retrieved, and could saunter off and have breakfast with the nice feeling that the boat was all ready to go.

There was a glassy calm when we set off, and I sanctimoniously resisted Anne's sensible suggestion to start the outboard. I rowed, we ghosted, we bobbed round in circles, and three hourslater we finally got into McMillan strait, and tied up at the public jetty.

After lunch and with some supplies on board we set off out the south eastern end of the strait. The wind had picked up, and we tacked out, very inefficiently at first as I neglected to lower the centreboard after lunch, but once we got that sorted we had a lovely beat along the south side of Raymond Island, checked out the depth of the bottom of Point King, then settled in for a lovely reach back down to our jetty. I sailed in, pulling up head to wind next to jetty, without too much drama, a nice end to a lovely sailing day.

Seal sail

I bumped into my neighbour Peter yesterday afternoon, while I was taking Oz for a walk, and on the spur of the moment, invited him for a sail today.  Which was probably a sound instinct, as if I had not done so, given the weather this morning and my general slowness in the morning, I doubt I would have gone out. 

Peter brought along Saika, his son's friend, who comes from Tokyo. She had never been sailing before, but she loved it.  It was great to see something which I do a lot through fresh eyes. She was very excited about the idea that there are wild animals living in the bay, and we decided to sail over to the large yellow buoy near the shipping channel, where I saw seals a few weeks ago. There were three, one large one sunning himself, and two in the water doing lazy turns and somersaults.  Saika was impressed. 

The day turned into a lovely sunny afternoon, wind around 10 knots so the boat was moving along nicely, and all in all I am extremely glad that we got out.

I attached my new mast float arrangement on the main.  It is probably too heavy, and probably contributes to the chance of a capsize, but if we did capsize it would stop the boat turning turtle.

Blow out

The forecast for yesterday that was available earlier in the week looked promising, warm, sunny and winds around 10 knots. After some back and forth on the Dinghy Cruising Australia facebook page, I said I would be going out, and invited anyone free to join me.

It felt like I had barely pressed the send button wwhen the forecast was revised up to 15 knots increasing.

I took the Mirror down, not withstanding. Jamie brought his down from Geelong. We rigged up in the shelter of the club house, then dragged the boats across the mud and soft and to the water. Jamie's boat tipped over twice getting it into the water, which might have been sufficient warning for wiser heads, but we set off, with a strong Northerly behind us. I gybed to get round the red stick, then looked back to see that Jamie was in strife. The wind had torn the cringle at the head of his sail out, his yard had jammed, and in the ensuing confusion another tear had split the belly of the main. I suspect the sail was well past its use by date, but he was now being blown off in the general direction of Port Arlington,  16 miles across the bay.

I tacked round, and came up on a broad reach to him, and managed to get a line across to him, and start towing him back to shore.

Amazing how much drag there is in an extra mirror hull. We made very slow progress on a tack back towards the safe harbor, and I tacked in towards shore earlier than I should have. On the new tack we were heading for shore but a long squelchy walk from where we left the trolleys, so I  decided to tack again, at which point things went distinctly pear shaped. The line somehow got caught under the centreboard of Jamie's boat, my Mirror refused to tack again thanks to the pressure on one side of the transome.In the ensuing confusion we dropped the line. I had towed Jamie to a point where he was now drifting onto the reef, barely covered at low tide. I had a clear vision of both our boats reduced to matchwood. The moral here is, I think, don't be a smart arse until you are right out of trouble.

After a few minutes of frenzied tacking, we managed to reconnect the tow line, and sadder but wiser, made landfall in the sea grass beds a few hundred metres from the clubhouse. We walked, towing the boats the final distance.

Oz was unimpressed. We copped a fair bit of water in boat so he was all wet, but he knew better than to jump out.

On the positive side, I felt ok with the conditions and the maneuvers required to attach the tow - the bom said it was gusting round 20 knots. On the other side of the ledger, I think I should have pulled the pin. Things could easily have not turned out so well. It is always difficult making decisions that involve other people, but yesterday is a lesson to err on the side of caution.

Yea verily Yea

My daughter Jess is doing the 4 Rivers bike trail in Korea in a couple of weeks. For a shakedown she and her partner wanted to try a longer bike ride, so we set off last Saturday to ride part of the rail trail from Yea to Mansfield, around 85 kilometres, and back again the next day.

It must be a decade since I last rode 170 kilometres on a weekend, and despite a couple of weeks of desultory training, I was mighty tired when we rolled into Mansfield on Saturday afternoon.

It was definitely a cycle to somewhere.  My $75 Shogun Trailbreaker bike was by far the oldest and probably the cheapest bike we encountered, but it did a great job.  There are two long hills, one up to Cheviot Tunnel and the other to Merton pass, that are a bit of a slog.  We were glad to get over each of them.

The scenery is magnificent, and it is a nice time of year to ride the trail, with lots of green, and blossom, and baby lambs and lamas.  Spring is also Magpie swooping season here, and as I have a black and white helmet, I seemed to get swooped the most.  I work on the basis that life is more a matter of being scared rather than being hurt, so mostly I just ignored it, though a couple of unexpected swoops gave me a fright.

All in all, a great weekend, and I think, a week later, that I have just about recoved.

Gannet day

I got the Core Sound out on Wednesday for a few hours.  I packed everything, but could not find Ozzie's life jacket.  It was a relatively light airs day, so I figured we would be ok, as he has learned not to try to get off until I carry him off. But I lost a bit of time searching, and so I was a bit hurried setting up and launching.  Still, I got on the water, and round to the Yacht Club to meet Kate at 10.30.  And when we opened the door to put her trike away, there was Ozzie's life jacket, as well as my new life jacket, hat and sailing rain coat.  I suspect I was a bit vague when I packed up after my last thwarted sailing attempt. (Last week I went down to take the Sabre out but the trailer wheel packed it in - so I spent that day replacing axle and wheel instead.)

The forecast was for very light winds, and I was worried we would be drifting around with the sails slatting going nowhere fast.  Luckily, there was plenty of pressure, in the form of a steady south westerly, and we made good progress on a tack over towards Point Cook.  There were quite a few gannets out there, dive bombing in spectacular fashion or just bobbing around in groups of three.  Magnificent birds.  It is one of the great bonuses of having a sailing boat that it is possible to get to see them up reasonably close and in action.

Three in a row

I've learned not to let good sailing days go by, even if they are one after the other.  It could be a while till the next one rolls round.

It was a lovely morning this morning, and Paul was out in front of AYC fixing his Sabre when I walked past on Ozzie's morning walk.  The water looked so inviting that when I got home I collected my sailing gear, and headed back down.

I got the Sabre out and on the water by 11.   The rigging went smoothly - I think I have internalized the order of things.

It was around 10 knots South South Easterly.  I tacked out past the Red Stick, then a broad reach along towards Altona Pier.  We were flying along, top speed on that leg 5.8 knots.

It was a beat into the chop to get back round the Red Stick, with lots of water over the bow. I used the venturi, which to my surprise works incredibly efficiently.  There was a reassuring sucking noise, like water going down a plug hole. 

Ozzie does not seem to like the Sabre much. He lies down resignedly facing towards the rear, and spray comes over and wets his fur. But he perks up when we get back on land, lots of excited barking and splashing around through the shallows.

The Sabre is like a sports car in these sorts of conditions.  The Core Sound would have been ploughing along in a stately fashion, maybe 4 knots, while the Sabre feels light and fast, almost like flying as you are closer to the water.

I am looking forward to the sailing season - I hope that we get some good sailing days.