An interlude on a monohull

 Whilst I may have spent my youth sailing dinghies, and Dad did have a 22 foot yacht when we were kids, I have never actually sailed on a monohull offshore, other than the  South Passage (a 30m  twin masted gaff rigged schooner of 198 gross tons  ) which I occasionally was skipper on, in years past. Comparing the South Passage to my next “gig”  a Catalina 32, is like comparing chalk and cheese.

 Would I actually succumb to seasickness? I honestly didn’t have a clue.

 The window of opportunity to relocate from Urangan Marina to Gladstone would help with future passages that the skipper had  planned.

 The weather forecast  post the low, was looking a bit more ‘usual’ for July, West to SW 15 offshore.

 Well we weren’t really “offshore” so of course it would probably only be about 15 kts wouldn’t it, plus of course that old ‘could be up to 40% stronger in gusts’ rider placed on all predictions these days ? Great  wind angle for the run.

 We left Urangan just after sunrise and I was quite pleased I had had the foresight to pick up my beanie and wet/cold weather jacket just in case the mornings were cool.

 We hadn’t actually progressed more than about 5miles when slightly more than early morning 10-15kts was evident .

So time to reef the main, which conveniently as we were in hand steering, meant not me , as not being at all familiar with the ‘how to ‘ and being on the wheel precluded me.

 Reef in place to the satisfaction of the skipper and steering much easier , we then noticed an issue with the jib. A small parting of the sailcloth between the sun protective leech strip and the sail. So that was furled and we continued quite nicely with just the mainsail. A spare smaller jib was located on board and we decided to wait until the wind eased off before removing the old one and bending on the new.

Suffice to say, it never got changed until we made the marina in Bundaberg.

 Have I mentioned that it was cool. Nope ,well maybe, but  that is because it wasn’t actually cool, it was downright cold.

All day the beanie , long pants , long johns as well, which I recall were “pffted” when I mentioned I had them with me, layers of tops as well and it was still cold.

The only angle I usually refer to is wind angle 
not  boat angle 

The wind was  coming from over the port side and when steering the only escape was to ‘sit down low and go, go, go” .One handed steering , so the other one could stay firmly in pocket, except when required for balance or devouring the particularly yummy and sustaining chocolate biscuits and fruit cake, which had been prepared by the previous crew who had had to disembark before they had planned too. My luck was in as they had left the goodies on board. 

Note skipper's blue uggies! 

Now here it became evident an advantage of sailing on an angle - which as a cat sailor I have relegated to the far recesses of my mind, was that a modicum of protection from the icy wind could be achieved by hunkering down on starboard side of the wheel.

 As the day progressed and it was a lovely day , apart from the excessive wind , the skipper decided ,possibly influenced by my moaning that I doubted I could keep up tricks on the wheel overnight, as we were hand steering and there were only two of us, to duck into Bundaberg overnight.

 Great idea from where I was sitting, freezing ! The river is a nice enough place to stop overnight , we have on several occasions stopped there on K’Gari.

Then a message came from friends of the skipper already in the marina, that due to the recent deluge ( from that low pressure system) that the river was full of debris , logs etc, so even better than spending the night at anchor, a berth at the marina was found to be available!

 Goodness me , the fresh outflow ,completely negated the so called flood which should have assisted us into the port. It reduced us to about 1.8kts as we motored up the channel. Departing would be a breeze in the morning !  

 So berthed for the night, we changed the jib, during that almost daily 5-10 minute period at dusk, when the wind is most likely to die away. Then  I could actually reflect that I hadn’t felt even a whiff of mal-de -mer and that the boat sails beautifully, although it would be a handful as a solo sailor boat, but that could be rectified in the future if necessary.

 Next morning we departed making a lovely 7 knots out of the channel- no wonder we had been reduced to 1.8 knots on arrival!

The wind had in fact decreased but was still at an excellent angle for a course to Gladstone.

The miles ticked away . No whales, not a single sighting, and its supposed to be whale season! Still jacket and beanie conditions though.

The only place to ’comfortably’ stop enroute to Gladstone from Bundy is Pancake Creek . In all honesty I prefer not to, as it’s always crowded with multiple boats all trying to avoid the same weather conditions.

In the current circumstances  it was going to be much more difficult than on K’Gari .I don’t have   major draft or engine speed  considerations, whereas  on the yacht I was currently aboard , we had both. A draft of 1.9m and the passage in/out could not be made on suitably assisting tides. Simple solution was to just sail on to Gladstone. The tide would turn at 0200 in the morning and we would be able to carry the flood in to the marina.

Positive heat wave -not!
Wind decreased so time to shed a few layers

So that’s what we did - just continued past the parking lot that was Pancake Creek. Twenty six  mast anchor lights evident, plus the smaller half cabin cruisers without masts that are often in there I imagine .

 As always, when the eta is looking good, the night got longer when the wind died and the slop set in. Sails stowed and engine started . Again, typically having finally given into the iron sail and stowed everything , eventually the wind reappeared from a useful angle , so we unfurled the jib , but didn’t bother with hoisting the mainsail again.  

 We entered the marina just before first light and I realised I was tired when a place I was so very familiar with looked ‘wrong’ . I couldn’t work out what the ‘building’ in Spinnaker Park was.There is no building ,but the trees are illuminated these days upwards from ground level with coloured lights  and the top of the tree line looked to me like a roof on a building .Luckily the skipper was slightly more alert and pointed out they were in fact illuminated  trees! Tired minds play tricks!

 Having come safely thus far it seemed a shame to potentially get it wrong in the last 10meters so we decided to hold off the actually berthing until daylight so we could better assess the designated berth and best approach.

Somehow I was in the hot seat, first attempt I pulled out of  and the second attempt was fine.

Repositioning voyage satisfactorily concluded.

 It hasn’t changed my mind about why I opted for  a catamaran, but it was a fun interlude, made in good company ,living life on a angle for a couple of days and wondering where the other half of the boat had gone!

 

 

Winter - head North is the theory.

This winter ,which I personally found one of the coldest and dreariest I could remember since 2005, there was a vague plan , with no actual departure date or destination, to do that which should be done in a Queensland winter, head north.

 With the haulout done and finished it was simply a matter of deciding when .

Watching the stream of traffic heading north it was fairly clear that others either had a plan or perhaps a timetable to keep.

 With a few things to do at home, whilst still keeping an eye on the weather patterns, I just needed to decide upon a departure date.

 The weather to my mind just wasn’t playing nicely and lets face it, a fire at home is a nicer prospect than wet’n’windy. We just kept putting it back and back.

 Almost settled on a departure date in mid July, the tide was right, the wind was right but the synoptic chart wasn’t looking as settled as it should and that fire was making things at home very comfortable.

 We didn’t go. A friend did and within the 24 hours of their departure, a rather uncharacteristic for Queensland winter waters, low pressure had formed to our north.

 That fire was lovely !

 For five days there would have been no progress north had we gone , just days of hiding from the low pressure.

 Good call, and it was looking good for the end of the month, so the plan was firming up.

 For reasons beyond my friend’s control, she found her self  ‘home alone’ and not at her planned destination.

 A look at the weather patterns and tides and I concluded I could assist if required and it would only delay our own departure by a couple of days at most.

 What was I thinking……..it’s a mono!

Click click, sunset pic

 Everything went according to plan for the haul out , including that small additional job of replacing the halyard , which I’m still mind boggled about, when I think of  the way the eye had been made originally. It may well be a spectra halyard as specified but a tuck and whipping, really ?

 The high light of the return run was a rather stunning sun set shot taken by my trusty crew, Peter ,just after we anchored having cleared the Coomera River after our 1500 splash back into the water.

We anchored for the evening to catch the tide to our advantage for the rest of the run northwards.

He took the shot and I jokingly said you should send that to the ABC weather to see if they use it. I  dug around on line to find the address to send it to and off it went.  

                                                    https://youtu.be/ZgVDgQhaVyI

 Post broadcast - it occurred to me  that there had obviously been a mutiny ( of which only the ABC was aware ) as 'ownership' of the vessel had apparently transferred!

We once again anchored overnight  in the bay inside Double Island Point awaiting the correct tidal conditions over the Wide Bay Bar and before we crossed the bar we did poke our way into the lagoon to have a look and see what depth there was in there. As there were only 12 vessels there at the time it seemed like an ideal opportunity as we had time to kill. It certainly seems quite pleasant in there although it always looks too crowded for my liking. 

Haul out time again

 So to Boat Works

 The usual suspects head the list of works to be done , antifoul , prop speed , cut n polish ,saildrive oil change , anode change. Then on the additional list a few items ,changing out the pipework on the port toilet discharge line after the teeny issue last year, getting a hull and rigging survey for insurance purposes. Investigating how difficult or easy it might be to change the tv which has developed an ever widening band of vertical lines, rather annoying as naturally its dead centre . New start battery to be purchased and installed as I keep seeing a message at start up about low voltage so after 7 years I think its done its time. Of course I’ve also added the investigation of the extinguished l.e.d. on the water maker. So that was what I had in mind before setting off.

 Tidal considerations had us crossing the Wide Bay Bar about 1400 so we planned to anchor inside Double Island Point for the night . The lagoon which has formed up over the last couple of years had 22 masts ( and obviously the attached yachts)visible and as it was flat calm we didn’t bother going in and just anchored in the bay.

 Set off the next day with two reefs in the main for the predicted weather. Rounded the point and headed south. Quickly decided to shake out the reefs as wind was way less than predicted , but one can’t be sure when in the protection of the bay. I was just stowing the halyard after we raised the main to full set, Peter had ducked inside to grab his camera as he had never seen the new swish mainsail, when an odd noise , a sort of shoosh, which actually made me look for a whale first,  drew my attention to the fact that the main was once again in the boom bag - self stowed!

The standing end of the halyard , the eye through which the pin passes, had failed. Hence the mainsail was no longer hoisted.

Inspection of the point of failure revealed the spectra core is completely in tact there was just no longer any semblance of an eye,  no evidence of  having ever had a  locking splice applied to it.   It appears that the end had been tucked in and whipped.

Hmmmmm! Really!  

 

The original halyard -with two whippings
but what exactly had they whipped -a tucked in end?

Outer ruptured cover revealing a perfectly in tact spectra core 
that appears to have been tucked into itself .No sign of a locking splice.

                                                                 

Spectra core looks fine , other than it should have an eye in it
but I'm not sure where the splice was/is. 

Apart from surprise ,the next  thought passing through both our minds is that could have been me up there not the mainsail. Casting my mind back to my basic grasp of physics I remember  formulas about mass ,gravity, time and distance. Would I have hit the deck faster than the sail???

 I knew I had suffered through  physics for a reason- however I still can't really see the point of it, as I would have hit the deck long before I had figured out the answer!

 So we continued south, sans mainsail, it wasn’t going to be worth the effort with the now updated forecast to muck around with the topping lift to substitute for the halyard.

 They say things come in threes, turns out that could be true.

 Later in the evening just as we were thinking about  stopping  we managed to in the dark to pick up a bloody crab pot around the port saildrive leg /prop. So that made the decision about when to stop quite easy! Next morning we waited until the change of tide so there would be no run and into the water I went . It took longer to wait for slack water, don my wetsuit,(hey it’s the middle of winter) set up the hooka etc than it did to clear the bloody entanglement. The clearance  side of it took less than 3 minutes ! Why on earth would anyone set a crab pot adjacent to (but outside ) the main shipping channel into Brisbane in 13m of water WITHOUT A LIGHT on it .Oddly enough an unlit buoy really isn’t very easy to see in the dark. Obviously my consumption of carrots needs to increase. If only FVCM (the only identifying mark) had put a phone number on the buoy I would have been able to phone the owner but alas it was actually illegally marked-no name or phone number -ah well the pot is where it was set  in 13m of water - minus the buoy, the stainless steel quick release pin -which in no way quickly released from my prop blade and as much mooring line as I could remove to ensure it didn’t foul anybody else's prop as it floated around. I certainly had no desire to heave the whole stinking pot aboard.

The offending debris 

All dressed up for what turns out
to be a  3 minute job. Mid winter dip in Moreton Bay 

 

What else could surprise us this voyage ……

 Didn’t have to wait too long to find out.

 The following morning as we prepared to set off , I started the engine as usual , in a disengaged state, checked the water from the exhaust and ducked inside to make sure I had noted down the engine hours when at the same instant we both realised we were moving ahead. Peter had been finishing up the washing up, which on here has a very scenic view, when he realised we were moving despite still being anchored. He called out, I looked up and we both  reacted. Shut the engine down and went to see why. It seemed the morse cable attachment - the cable that connects the deck control to the saildrive leg  had become loose ( a bolt had actually fallen out altogether and was located beneath the engine). In its slightly askew state it was clearly not disengaged. Replaced the bolt, tightened all four of them , and similarly checked the starboard engine and tweaked all the bolts there as well.  Could have been worse ,it might have happened in a confined space like berthing or departing in a  marina instead of just looking like twits careering around whilst still at anchor!

 So that was number three -done and dusted, so hopefully that was it for the voyage. 

Our borders re open ,so planned haul out delayed

 A quick bolt to Platypus Bay for some lovely clear water to inspect the condition of the anodes , as I’m delaying the annual haul out for a month or two as we are now allowed to leave Oz and return without quarantine restrictions.  I’m pretty sure that the government largess is not going to extend to a  rebate on the cost of my passport which has sat idle for two years.

 The anode that always chews through the fastest is the wee triangular one on the gori prop. It’s all tikety boo and will certainly last until the haul out .

 However …..it appears the cockpit fridge fan  decided it was time for long service leave. That’s the second one, the first lasting less than 6 months ! So 6 years is good I guess. The cockpit fridge is actually excellent after it was finally made good in Senibong by the very skilful James . I had been on the point of turning into a dry storage locker until James appeared.

 When we returned to the vessel I had noticed whilst running through all the pre departure checks that the green l.e.d on the Z Brane water maker was not glowing eerily green as it should have been. Suspect some dollar signs may be involved in that one! Not an issue for this trip as I wont be needing to make fresh water, but another item for the haul out .

 As we started the engines to head home I again noticed a sluggishness in the port engine spitting water through the exhaust  . Checked the previous issue with strainer basket but all good there. As water was then being expelled from the exhaust as it should be we heaved up and set off. Before we had finished heaving the anchor a squeal was heard from port engine so immediately shut it down. I guessed the problem might be with the impeller- the extent of my skill set! Checked the impeller but it all seemed fine. Didn’t re start the port engine again and asked for some assistance  berthing in the marina until the reason for the issue could be determined.

 Both issues resolved incredibly expediently by my friendly, handy  and knowledgeable marina neighbour . New fan installed in cockpit fridge within an hour or two , with fan being reversed to blow cold air into cabinet -works a treat ! The squeal was in fact just a slipping drive belt, easily tightened  when you know how .

It's been a bit quiet on the K’Gari front

 Due to an unfortunate occurrence whilst  whipper snippering  at home, when I put my foot down on apparently nothing and then decided to sit upon my ankle with my ‘sylph like’ body mass.

 Here be it now recorded just how much I loathe gardening!

 However - today moon boot and subsequent ankle brace being confined to the cupboard after 12 weeks, is the first glimpse of my beautiful new mainsail.

 

 

looking fantastic ,beautifully constructed

Rigged and fitted and test sailed! Yeah. Product plug : Smith Sails, you ripper . It’s great , looks beautiful, looks strong and superbly constructed and with reef points that make more sense to me than the original mainsail.

and lurking on the other side .......

For the life of the original main the only times we ever used the first reef point were, homeward bound through Indonesia when the clew ring webbing failed and from when the main shredded itself last year. The first reef appeared to take out so little that we always just skipped straight through to the second reef , for comfort and ease.  If it was time to take a reef -take two and halve the effort! 

Always learning, every voyage presents new opportunities

 Off to Lady Musgrave again. This time the whole trip will be with first reef in to allow use of the still shredded mainsail. New one ordered and construction will start soon!

 Unremarkable passage through the Sandy Straits ,other than it dawned that the freezer was not in fact freezing. We had arrived at marina , turned on freezer and loaded it. Usually I allow it to freeze down prior to loading but as this was a last minute decision based on weather pattern, time did no allow for that on this occasion.  Hmmm, oh well ,luckily we are carnivores, certainly no need to waste our time trolling for those fish we never catch ,although of course sods law reigning as it does , we would probably actually catch one this time , but we have meat to consume instead.

 Once in the lagoon we spent the next few days snorkelling as per usual. Now for a product plug….the shark guard works on sharks as well as Manta rays.

We were snorkelling around one of the bommies where unbeknown to us a small reef shark was resting/lurking under a plate coral.

 We drifted along  and the tail of the shark guard therefore hung fairly vertically .As Jo drifted over the plate coral the shark which had stayed quietly in place, unnoticed by me  as I passed over it, obviously got a sensation and shot out from under the plate coral and disappeared pronto! Still not sure who was more surprised us or the reefy !

 Every time I start an engine we check that water is being discharged appropriately. I had been thinking that the port engine was taking a little longer than normal this trip, so checked the raw water pump impeller was as it should be -ie in tact ,no vanes missing etc .All seemed ok with the impeller so I started checking the strainer basket was always primed and discovered it wasn’t ,so the hunt began for the reason. Found it! Hairline fracture in the plastic lid, thus no vacuum ,thus not always primed. Obviously I had screwed it down too tightly last time I replaced the strainer basket- don’t know my own strength apparently !

 So learnt a couple more things this trip, always more to learn.