K'Gari. Voyage of adventure , to the horizon and beyond........: Parade of Sail. Australian Wooden Boat Festival 2019

The opening of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival is denoted by the Parade of Sail on the Friday morning.
Of course the best place to be to see it and be part of it is out there on the Derwent, and this we had planned to do, being joined by Jan(long time friend from Cairns,now living in Hobart) and Dave who was on his summer sojourn to Launceston.
Dave arrived down the evening before and we actually managed to whizz across by car to pick up the new and shiny anchor which was waiting for me. Jan arrived the following morning.
The day was not ideal for a Parade of Sail for Tall ships with square sails as the wind was quite blustery and from the wrong direction- typical of mother nature!
Not to be put off we set off under jib alone , which throughout the morning we furled and unfurled as necessary for the blustery conditions.

The parade duly lined up and sailed in carrying what sail they could. The James Craig , the Endeavour replica, the Soren Larsen , the Rhona H, the Young Endeavour, the One and All, Lady Nelson, Yukon to name the most memorable.

James Craig

We had a wonderful morning on the water and were returning to the mooring when a bullet of wind ripped through. The wind went from what was a pleasant 10-12 kts which we sailing along in under the full jib to 30kts in seconds- so

Premier and Yukon

quickly in fact, I was still altering course to bring her up into the wind to spill the pressure, as it hit and in doing so the jib car blew apart , with a resounding bang. So resounding that Dave commented later he thought it was perhaps the Endeavour firing off another blank round from her cannon, as she had been during the parade! The jib was flapping - as it would when rounded up into the wind and to be honest it took a couple of seconds to realize exactly what had occurred. Thankfully nobody had been on the foredeck at the time and when I realized what had happened and went forward there was the jib car block still on the jib sheet but not on the track or the car.Instead it had smashed into the footblock (another casualty) and had come to a stop. Furled up the jib and motored back to the mooring . Buggar!
Apart from the damage sustained, the morning had been terrific fun with such good company.
After lunch I rang the chandler, sent some photos across and asked them to source some replacements .....