So as to encourage a few here to make the trip or do the Ryct Circumnavigation Cruise here are some pics for motivation
Beautiful. Thanks for posting the lovely photos.
I was hoping to get down there this summer but was late getting back from cruising up to Lizard Island.
Next summer definitely!!
I don't want to hijack the thread, but after visiting Tassie back in 2018 on our cat, I won't be going back. Continually changing winds, worrying about anchorages as fronts go through and a lack of ability to leave the boat and go and visit the wonderful mountains I could see from the boat makes Tassie a no go zone for my boat. Take a car or campervan with a kayak on top and see everywhere you can by boat apart from Port Davey and see all of the interior as well. I love Tassie but cruising there was not good for me. Going to Tassie on a boat is the reverse of sailing Queensland. In Queensland you need a boat because you have all the inaccessible reef and islands off a not amazing coastline. In Tassie you have wonderful national parks and almost all the coastline and islands available to land based travel and very few spots you can safely leave the boat for to check them out. It did my head in to watch people in cars getting better access to beaches and bays than we could in the boat. We did get two fabulous days - one sailing from St Helens south when we saw hundreds of albatross and hundreds of dolphins and another day where we hung around the seal colony at the base of Bruny. But those days were rare good ones, far too much hanging around due to weather.
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
I don't want to hijack the thread, but after visiting Tassie back in 2018 on our cat, I won't be going back. .............. But those days were rare good ones, far too much hanging around due to weather.
What time of year did you go?
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
I don't want to hijack the thread, but after visiting Tassie back in 2018 on our cat, I won't be going back. Continually changing winds, worrying about anchorages as fronts go through and a lack of ability to leave the boat and go and visit the wonderful mountains I could see from the boat makes Tassie a no go zone for my boat. Take a car or campervan with a kayak on top and see everywhere you can by boat apart from Port Davey and see all of the interior as well. I love Tassie but cruising there was not good for me. Going to Tassie on a boat is the reverse of sailing Queensland. In Queensland you need a boat because you have all the inaccessible reef and islands off a not amazing coastline. In Tassie you have wonderful national parks and almost all the coastline and islands available to land based travel and very few spots you can safely leave the boat for to check them out. It did my head in to watch people in cars getting better access to beaches and bays than we could in the boat. We did get two fabulous days - one sailing from St Helens south when we saw hundreds of albatross and hundreds of dolphins and another day where we hung around the seal colony at the base of Bruny. But those days were rare good ones, far too much hanging around due to weather.
Agree not for everyone for these reasons and they are good reasons
curious as to time of year as huge difference between December and say February
And the weather will do your head in if you are used to the east coast heading north
But you can't drive a car to Three Hummock island
We went in December/January. I got told it was not a good time but that was the only time we had. We had a lovely trip south in late December, cruised till late Jan, left the boat there for the year (went down in Easter and didn't get off the marina it was that brutal in the Dentrecasteaux), and then cruised again the next December and then started back home again in mid Jan. Everyone said we should come back in March, which I would heartily recommend people consider.
That Easter trip was funny, it blowing super hard, dark red on Meteye and we were super cold, so I tried the double mattress in the back of the hire car. It fitted so we popped it in the back and drove away from the maelstrom and cold to Bicheno, where it was a balmy 14 degrees with no wind and sun. We had a great week seeing our fave national parks and avoiding the bad weather by strategic driving. The boat never left the dock that holiday but we had a great time - in the car. Getting back north in summer was tricky. We ended up getting to Flinders and waiting for a calm rather than hook onto a southerly change (I didn't want to scare my crew - or me) and we motored for most of the way to Eden. As for Three Hummock Island - next time for me I am putting the sea kayaks on the roof of the car so I don't get blown away from an island. We were at Maria Island, having a nice morning. We just started setting off for the top of the island, a nice 4 hour walk or so and about 30 minutes in a northerly came in building about a knot every 2 minutes. So we trotted back and by the time we were pulling up the anchor on a now lee shore it was blowing 20 into the beautiful bay I didn't explore properly on another island I didn't get to see properly because of the blasted wind - but if I had my kayak I could have stayed ashore and told the constant wind changes to go to wherever they can be damned to. The wind hated me staying put and casual in Tassie. I would have loved to have spent more time on Flinders but, you guessed it, we had exposed anchorages, foreboding forecasts, fog, weedy bottoms, anchors that have never dragged before giving that a go for kicks even on 10 to one scope, and highly changeable conditions - In the end I just wanted out. A car and a sea kayak is my way next time.
No doubt Tasmania cruising tests your anchoring skills.
Not good old Moreton Bay mud.
a local explaining anchoring in a part of the northern strait said "anchoring there is like trying to anchor in a bucket of ball bearings"
Then we get to the kelp!
Just anchoring and just as a guide, Defiance is 9m long and weighs about 3500kg but has little windage.
Light anchor - 12 kg CQR with 20m of 8mm short link and 30m of 18mm warp
Heavy anchor - 20kg CQR with 50m of 8mm short link and 100m of 20mm nylon
Anchor snubber is 5m of nylon
If going into either end of the Strait (lots of kelp or weed) I would get a Manson Supreme as design seems to set very quickly in the kelp beds (from experience on earlier boats).
Often as well you will have to anchor in quite deep water (over 15m even close to sheltered shore)so you need plenty.
No anchor winch so I don't like to have several goes getting it right or moving in the night.
Thanks for the info on Tassie. We are heading over shortly by Spirit of Tasmania with our tow tug which is a slide on camper on a small AWD car licensed truck. We are taking a new style drop stitched inflatable tandem canoe to explore some rivers and lakes. We are however contemplating either a Bass Straight crossing or the huge costs to bring our maxi sized cruising trailer sailer over on the ferry in future.
Whilst over there we intend to review the suitability of anchorages around the coast and rivers. What does your yacht draw? We can both run right up onto a beach and dry out flat if necessary perhaps opening up anchorage possibilities not available to more conventional draft yachts. Would this make a difference in your view?
Shallow water anchoring technique!
Select to expand quotelydia said..
Just anchoring and just as a guide, Defiance is 9m long and weighs about 3500kg but has little windage.
Light anchor - 12 kg CQR with 20m of 8mm short link and 30m of 18mm warp
Heavy anchor - 20kg CQR with 50m of 8mm short link and 100m of 20mm nylon
Anchor snubber is 5m of nylon
If going into either end of the Strait (lots of kelp or weed) I would get a Manson Supreme as design seems to set very quickly in the kelp beds (from experience on earlier boats).
Often as well you will have to anchor in quite deep water (over 15m even close to sheltered shore)so you need plenty.
No anchor winch so I don't like to have several goes getting it right or moving in the night.
Ha, the Manson Supreme was my fave anchor until Tassie. Then it got the sulks and started dragging. So it now is in the naughty bin until we head back north where it likes warm water. We ended up using the spare, the same weight Manson CQR for the last 1/3 of our trip, still on the roller even now. Can't beat the classics.
Grith - we also like to beach the cat but Tassie had few areas where we could use that facet of our cruising, apart from St Helens. We had a nice trip from Eden to St Helens which was pretty flat when we crossed. Same on the way back, we went straight in with our shoal draft - heaps of depth, about 3 metres but nice to be able to slip in and a good spot to wait for better weather. You could probably do a few spots on the north east coast (Musselroe Bay I think) and a creek in Flinders I had picked out as a hurricane hole. But you will find out for yourself with the kayak
Grith
i see two issues.
First in the south most of the shore is rocks and even where there is sand it is full of oyster shells and mussels, which is why a lot of locals use hard tenders
Second is a lot of anchorages even if sand are very open so always surge.
In the north in the estuaries it is different and on the east inside Marion Bay
So not great for dry out on.
Draft is rarely a problem in TAS, but 1.75m for Defiance
My choice of the Manson Supreme is based on kelp anchoring technique.
You find your sand spot and you need the anchor to grab before it gets to the kelp.
once in the kelp it never properly sets as you find out at 0200hrs usually.
The Supreme set the quickest usually in a 1 metre.
Another trick in a boat with high lift keel is to use very very over size warp.
not for breaking strain but drag to stop the keel generating lift and the boat sailing to the end of the warp at 3 knots then tacking back to the other side.
Also don't think the boat will just lie in the one direction, in heaps of breeze you will be buffetted from all side even abeam.
Never anchor behind the high land/hill but the low land/ hill is another tip.
Hope that helps
L
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
I don't want to hijack the thread, but after visiting Tassie back in 2018 on our cat, I won't be going back. Continually changing winds, worrying about anchorages as fronts go through and a lack of ability to leave the boat and go and visit the wonderful mountains I could see from the boat makes Tassie a no go zone for my boat. Take a car or campervan with a kayak on top and see everywhere you can by boat apart from Port Davey and see all of the interior as well. I love Tassie but cruising there was not good for me. Going to Tassie on a boat is the reverse of sailing Queensland. In Queensland you need a boat because you have all the inaccessible reef and islands off a not amazing coastline. In Tassie you have wonderful national parks and almost all the coastline and islands available to land based travel and very few spots you can safely leave the boat for to check them out. It did my head in to watch people in cars getting better access to beaches and bays than we could in the boat. We did get two fabulous days - one sailing from St Helens south when we saw hundreds of albatross and hundreds of dolphins and another day where we hung around the seal colony at the base of Bruny. But those days were rare good ones, far too much hanging around due to weather.
Did you have any of the sailing or boating guides for Tasmania?
( l have two of them )
They are great reading and have mucho excellent information for cruising boaties, specially interstate boat owners.
They detail nearly every popular mooring area around the coast....the conditions you are likely to find...re depth, the type of ' ground '...which side of the bay is best in any given wind...how many boats can fit etc etc... what facilities are available in the coastal towns and who to contact if you require a berth or other services.
Or if you just need a spot to get out out of the breeze for awhile.
Going cruising without a Tas cruising guide is a bit like trying to cross the Simpson Desert without a map etc etc.
MAST also has a shipload of cruising information on their website.
As does BOM a must if anyone is gonna go cruising anywhere.
Reading your post it seems that me that a large part of your post is about not having access to a road vehicle to explore inland areas....which is a problem common to the mainland as well...unless you are boating on the Gold Coast or Whitsundays...where there are car hire joints on nearly every other corner.
The great bit about boating in Tasmania is the pristine, isolated AND near empty anchorages/ mooring areas...except in busy times...where you can unwind in peace....after checking the weather forecast...first, of course.
The MAST website is excellent, the 2nd in charge there is a super experienced sailor (25 plus Hobarts)
The RYCT Cruising Guide is written by a good friend, again super experienced. (His and his partners idea of a retirement cruise was not the Whitsundays but Patagonia and then into the Arctic Circle)
The CYCT Guides equally are very good.
The RYCT Guide is very conservative as it is written for cruise which has many mainlanders new to Tasmania.
the RYCT Cruise starts in a few weeks with a new Cruise Captain for the first time in about 20 years.
Taking part in this the best way to get your heads around things.
The John Brettingham Moore guide which has many of the cray boat anchorages I find best if looking to get out of the worst of it.
Many will not be perfect anchorage's but better than at sea.
NE side on Waterhouse Island is an example of that, in the Brettingham Moore guide and not originally in the RYCT Guide (but is now)
Gday Tired
Nah, we had the cruising guides, no problem there. As Lydia said, we found the MAST website very useful, I downloaded the little videos onto the computer before we left.
I reckon Lydia's points about getting buffeted are more important than they may seem. We sailed our 4000kg 38ft cat and found she was not terribly secure feeling in the nasty weather in protected anchorages, with gusts from many directions, whereas our compatriots on heavier displacement keelers were subject to far fewer accelerations and less strain on the anchor gear. In QLD our cat is a great cruiser and I would never trade her, for Tassie, I thought an old cray boat would be a good idea.
Seasonal variations would also be a thing. We just got a couple of years where the lows would sweep over Tassie every couple of days, necessitating a constant change of anchorages if we wanted to be anywhere but hanging in Cygnet or similar. (But the cherries were nice)
My point about car was that if you popped me along the Queensland coast and said "What is the most interesting place to visit and what vehicle do you need?" after Southport it is always "Give me a boat because a car can't get me to the islands and the islands are amazing". In Tassie a boat doesn't get you much extra access to any amazing spots so if you asked me I would say "Give me the car because a car can get me to the mountains as well as almost all of the coast".
That said I can understand why people love cruising Tassie, it's a great spot, but it may not be for sailors who love bushwalking who sail light displacement yachts. We also didn't make many friends on the trip, all the locals seemed happy with their own company and really it is the people you meet who make a trip special.
My recommendation would be to sail a reasonable displacement boat, talk to people who have been there a bit and talk to locals about the best months to go, it may not be Dec/January. I got some excellent advice from Jim Cate who cruises up and down to Tassie regularly about getting to Tassie and his advice was worth its weight in gold.
Select to expand quoteKankama said..
Gday tired
I reckon Lydia's points about getting buffeted are more important than they may seem. We sailed our 4000kg 38ft cat and found she was not terribly secure feeling in the nasty weather in protected anchorages, with gusts from many directions, whereas our compatriots on heavier displacement keelers were subject to far fewer accelerations and less strain on the anchor gear. In QLD our cat is a great cruiser and I would never trade her, for Tassie, I thought an old cray boat would be a good idea.
Seasonal variations would also be a thing. We just got a couple of years where the lows would sweep over Tassie every couple of days, necessitating a constant change of anchorages if we wanted to be anywhere but hanging in Cygnet or similar. (But the cherries
My recommendation would be to sail a reasonable displacement boat, talk to people who have been there a bit and talk to locals about the best months to go, it may not be Dec/January.
A few points well made
Best months are February to mid May and not early summer as this the worst time to cruise
The lows K refers to move west to east at high speed so you have to wait until the big highs from central Australia drop into the Bight then the lows are forced south under tasmania
The happens most in late summer and autumn and the weather is quite stable
I will try to find some pics of riding out a gale in a very good anchorage with the wind gear showing 54 knots from 70 degrees apparent in the gusts
it is not the speed but the angle
Btw more chain is not always the answer to sailing up the anchor at speed
Here is snow on Adamsons Peak and the southern alps in mid November
One of the lows!
Same mountain as in earlier pic up the thread
Yep, the Hartz mountains are a constant beacon down south. In Easter the snow was way down the flanks.
5 January 
15 November