Nha Trang Harbour.
Today is the day , after two intense days of soaking in technical information about K'Gari, that she actually sails.
Now all that needs to happen is, hoist the sails and take her for a sail around the harbour....
Well not so fast, it seems.
First of all the intrigue of the propellers needs to be explained,as well as the autopilot controls,so the mooring is slipped and we motor off.
K'Gari has folding props, which as the word suggests, fold to allow sailing with least resistance , when they are not require to be propelling her through the water under diesel power. These props have two operating modes, one is "normal" and one is "overdrive". Overdrive allows greater efficiency and thus less fuel is consumed .However initially, for a simple but excited sailor ,its a bit un-intuitive, changing from one drive to the other, by crunching her through neutral into astern,then ahead, to reverse and reopen the blades, at the most efficient blade angle. Our advisor today can clearly hear the difference in the engine revs, but not me. Eventually it seems to dawn, that it really does sound different, so after all of us have tried a couple of times, it's finally, with prompting from one very excited skipper to be, time to hoist the sails.
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| The first hoist |
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| So that's K'Gari's sail number! |
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| Yes Kwok - correct, nobody is paying attention! |
and all without drama,
due to the diligence,vigilence and patience of our Vietnamese advisor, Kwok.
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| MPS is revealed |
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| First setting of MPS |
and she sails beautifully in next to no wind. Brilliant!
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