Where did you go on your sailing boat today?

Young 88 NSW Championships

Went for a couple of hours run around the western harbour and up Lane Cove river to my old mooring in Tambourine Bay. My wife and I admiring the waterfront houses that we couldn't afford a deposit on.
MB motored well, only water in the bilge at the end was a bit of coolant overflow from me overfilling it.
Motor sailed back with the heady up and got to 6.5 kts. Pretty happy with that.
Every time I think I should sell her I fall back in love with her.

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[b]cisco said..

I bet you say "Hey Sweetheart, I'm back." when you go back to her, just like I do.

That's what I say to the neighbors boat

Chris,
Get this https://www.boatbooks-aust.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=21_48_104&products_id=31671 you'll thank me..
regards,
allan

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Futurecruiser said..

Chris 249 said..

Futurecruiser said..
Just back from a week down at Wilsons Prom, beautiful weather though not enough wind around. First visit down there, some great spots!

Futurecruiser said..
Just back from a week down at Wilsons Prom, beautiful weather though not enough wind around. First visit down there, some great spots!

Very nice! What boat is that? And are those shots taken around Corner Inlet? We're thinking of heading down to the Strait and Tassy next year, but we're finding it hard to find info on the area.

Hi Chris, the boat is a Van de Stadt 34, I only got her last year but very happy with her so far and I reckon she is a very pretty boat if I do say so myself! The first shot is Oberon Bay on the western side of the Prom, the next two are Refuge Cove. Refuge Cove in particular is a great anchorage and a beautiful spot, good place to jump off if heading to Tassie, and thinking I will do just that next summer. Not Corner Inlet but not far south of there. I also endorse Allan's recommendation of Cruising Victoria, good cruising guide for Victoria and northern Tasmania.

It is a great boat

Just got back from the double ended Commodores Cup race from Manly to Mooloolaba then back to Manly. First time I've done it, and aside from some (ouch) expensive breakages I'm now a confirmed fan. It's a great weekend away, we were dodging cruise ships, surfing waves at 15 knots, and the dock party was not too shabby either :)

That very cool Andy.
Here's my first effort at editing, a vid of the new boat's first 12 months. Hope you like it

Thanks for that, it's great to see a follow up after watching your adventures from the beginning.

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shaggybaxter said..
That very cool Andy.
Here's my first effort at editing, a vid of the new boat's first 12 months. Hope you like it

So whats the go with damaged wheel and rudder ??

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shaggybaxter said..
Thanks guys.

Dream, the wheel damage was from having slack in the mainsheet in a gybe. The sheet looped over the the helm (leeward) when the boom went over. It bit in like hot knife through butter, sounded for all the world like a gunshot. It was blowy though, 30 odd knots so that didn't help.
Made the gybe pretty hairy with the mainsheet buried in the now-windward helm :)

It's a problem I haven't worked out yet, with the traveller right in front of the helm positions. If you don't sheet in all the main on a gybe you do run the risk of fouling a wheel.

The rudder was from low tide when docking. Doing 1-2 knots in reverse and a rudder scraped the face of a boat ramp, bastard thing is only a foot shorewards from the edge of my dock.
I now officially hate that boat ramp.
Didn't even apologise.

I see you repaired the wheel but how much are those carbon fibre wheels.

We had the first race on our new boat. Just a little local club race in the sticks, with only six starters. We had a very generous handicap but lost a bit when the light winds shifted to make the first beat a fetch for the last two boats, after we'd tacked twice to make the mark. We only have a MPS so with a light reach and run for about 4-5 miles we got caught and passed near the last bottom mark, but as it faded we moved back into a one length lead and allowed the the two faster boats to foul each other up at the mark while we sailed away again to win by about 4 minutes.

Despite just having cruising sails and being about a ton heavier than our main rival (another 36'er, a lightweight racer 15 years newer) with our bigger rig we seem fully competitive upwind in the light stuff. They caught us downwind but then we re-passed them, which may indicate that part of the reason they caught us is just the softer wind further down the course, or that when it gets really light we do better. Lack of experience with the boat is also obviously slowing us down; I stuffed the laylines twice and that cost us a minute or two in the light winds.

Overall it was an encouraging performance. We've got a 10 year old cruising 130% furling #1 and cruising main, and a much older MPS and #3. I'll be interested to see how much difference it makes when we get some racing sails aboard, but that may be some time since we want to get to know the boat before we work out what sails we need.

Thanks. Yeah, on my Windsurfer I had one perfect sail that I pulled out for about six days a year - state and national titles. It was kept immaculately rolled around a tube, was never allowed to flap, rigged with infinite care....... and despite all that it got slow without my realising it, because I was training hard (using other sails) and getting better and better as the sail got older. It was a salutary lesson in how a sail's ageing can creep up on you.

Most of our serious racing will still be in little boats so I'm looking seriously at aiming to use the section of the IRC rule that gives you a benefit for using a 120%+ roller furler sail and one heavy weather jib. A sistership in the UK has taken than option and rates really well, and I think two good sails will provide a better cost/speed/rating mix than a L1, H1, #3 and #4 mix. While a 120-130% headsail can have sheeting angle issues, it may still be the best option when it comes to matching the opposition and racing in our strong local winds.

An alternative is just to get short overlap headsails, but that could leave us bogged down in the light upwind stuff where we could otherwise be most competitive. I tend to try to be pretty consistent across all the wind angles and ranges but to have one strong point as a strategic weapon.

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shaggybaxter said..
Thanks guys.

Dream, the wheel damage was from having slack in the mainsheet in a gybe. The sheet looped over the the helm (leeward) when the boom went over. It bit in like hot knife through butter, sounded for all the world like a gunshot. It was blowy though, 30 odd knots so that didn't help.
Made the gybe pretty hairy with the mainsheet buried in the now-windward helm :)

It's a problem I haven't worked out yet, with the traveller right in front of the helm positions. If you don't sheet in all the main on a gybe you do run the risk of fouling a wheel.

The rudder was from low tide when docking. Doing 1-2 knots in reverse and a rudder scraped the face of a boat ramp, bastard thing is only a foot shorewards from the edge of my dock.
I now officially hate that boat ramp.
Didn't even apologise.

Hi Shaggy

It was lucky that the slack in the mainsheet caught the wheel and not a crew member during the gybe as happened during a clipper race a few years ago causing a fatality www.gov.uk/maib-reports/accidents-on-board-yacht-cv21-resulting-in-loss-of-2-lives

We have had a couple of cases down here where crew on a couple of boats were knocked over by the mainsheet during accidental gybes injuring them

Do the people at Pogo have any ideas on how to take up the slack ?

I suppose when you mean to gybe you can sheet it in and then out but if you do a accidental gybe it is a different matter

Is it possible to run the main through a large diameter low friction ring mounted on either the cockpit floor or boom forward of the sheet on shock cord to pull the slack forward away from the helm if it looses tension during a gybe

I guess on the tiller steered version it is not such a issue

Regards Don

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Donk107 said..

shaggybaxter said..
Thanks guys.

Dream, the wheel damage was from having slack in the mainsheet in a gybe. The sheet looped over the the helm (leeward) when the boom went over. It bit in like hot knife through butter, sounded for all the world like a gunshot. It was blowy though, 30 odd knots so that didn't help.
Made the gybe pretty hairy with the mainsheet buried in the now-windward helm :)

It's a problem I haven't worked out yet, with the traveller right in front of the helm positions. If you don't sheet in all the main on a gybe you do run the risk of fouling a wheel.

The rudder was from low tide when docking. Doing 1-2 knots in reverse and a rudder scraped the face of a boat ramp, bastard thing is only a foot shorewards from the edge of my dock.
I now officially hate that boat ramp.
Didn't even apologise.

Hi Shaggy

It was lucky that the slack in the mainsheet caught the wheel and not a crew member during the gybe as happened during a clipper race a few years ago causing a fatality www.gov.uk/maib-reports/accidents-on-board-yacht-cv21-resulting-in-loss-of-2-lives

We have had a couple of cases down here where crew on a couple of boats were knocked over by the mainsheet during accidental gybes injuring them

Do the people at Pogo have any ideas on how to take up the slack ?

I suppose when you mean to gybe you can sheet it in and then out but if you do a accidental gybe it is a different matter

Is it possible to run the main through a large diameter low friction ring mounted on either the cockpit floor or boom forward of the sheet on shock cord to pull the slack forward away from the helm if it looses tension during a gybe

I guess on the tiller steered version it is not such a issue

Regards Don

G'day Don,
I think the solution is as you suggested, pass the mainsheet through a low friction ring, then take the low friction ring on a strop back to a hard point underneath the boom. The issue I haven't mastered is the ring simply slides up the mainsheet till it has no effect.
I can't work out how to go to the cockpit floor , the traveller is 4 mtrs wide, which makes it more difficult.
I need to work on it, I'm still hoping for a ureka moment :)

Don, do you mean like the ring and rope (sketched in) above? see brown line. Ie; under a bit of tension when the main is hard on?
The red line is a sketch of what I tried previously, less tension, ie: slack almost when main is hard on. I don't like to be near bungee when its under tension, so I've never tried it tight.
Hmmm......whats like bungy cord but doesn't whip when it lets go?

Edit: Please excuse the non scaled/engineered drawing. It looks like it's designed to be a reverse bow and arrow, shoot the poor helmsman in the eyes