QLD 2012 #1 Leaving Hobart
Reprinted from the Tasmanian Yachtsman - Winter 2012
I guess it’s a little bit crazy not deciding whether to head north for the winter until after you’ve already left on a cruise but, there you have it. Vic and I were still undecided between Queensland or Fortescue Bay when we cast off from the Royals last week. Tubby (Golden Haze) was sitting quietly in the marina, fully fuelled, gassed and watered and after six months of commercial stress, a shoulder rebuild and other assorted angst back home, a passage far from the madding crowd was the order of the day. Where we ended up really was secondary.
Tubby has also recently received a bit of a tickle up that needed a serious sea trial. Some of you may recall seeing her on the club slip under the crane, the rig hauled out and Marcus Ohnn wielding a welder over a new mast step on the foredeck nearly three feet for’d of the rig’s historic base on the coach house.
After a few years of contemplating the cause and effect of an excruciating amount of weather helm I had finally bitten the bullet and committed Tubby to having her balance changed. Subsequently, there have been a number of queries from the marine architects whose offices are strategically located in the back bar of the club as to how effective the rig adjustment has been. To cut a long story short, moving the rig forward has been a resounding success and the old girl now feels like a boat rather than a tram decked out in floaties.
But back to Triabunna and one of our favourite pubs on the Tassie coast and turning left instead of right on our departure from this fine establishment. I’d been waiting on a phone call to clarify whether I was required in Hobart the following week or not and when the call came through and the decision was a resounding ‘Probably not.” we decided that this was enough to push our collective button.
Vic and I were hoping my old sailing buddy Jimmy Mc Cormack would be able to do the passage with us but as usual, time and commitments interfered and so we were two across the Strait, with one small but extremely significant asset, Arnold the auto-pilot. This little item means life aboard is a significant departure from the bad old days when going to sea was a life risking raw adventure that required skill sets that to some extent are now forgotten. Sextants are now housed in museums, fully waterproof designer wet weather gear is the norm and auto pilots and chart plotters are as obligatory on a cruising yacht as piston hanks on headsails and a tot of rum at the end of your watch once were. I even have an Ipad with a $45 Navionics app that performs admirably as a back up chart plotter.
In recent months, my mate Wabbler and I have been having an ongoing discussion as to how cold it gets in Tassie in the winter time and just how much warmer the weather gets if you head north. I have to tell you Billy, that when you get frost bite from wiping the ice off as you coil the shore power lead, Tassie is bloody cold. And as I write this, sitting in Refuge Cove in the Hawkesbury, wearing only a t-shirt I think this argument is one I’m gong to win.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. Having made the decision that with a weather forecast, to quote that guru of Bass Strait weather predictions, Kenny Batt, was ‘purrrfect’, and the ring around the moon promising a south westerly in the next day or two was all I needed for a dash across the pond, we opted to get the hell out of Tassie while the going was good and we’d figure out the details later. Funnily enough Bass Strait was it’s typical self, enough current setting to the south to have an argument with the 10 to 20 knot south westerlies we took with us resulting in the waves being higher than they were long and plenty of pot holes along the way.
But, that’s Bass Strait for you and other than Vic being a little uncharacteristically off colour, the 340 odd mile run from Triabunna through to Eden was one of the less eventful crossings I’ve made, completed in a little over two days. Two up is never my preferred option for passages. The demands of keeping proper watches weary the best of men, but I dips my lid to Vic, whose subsequent diagnosis at the Eden Quackery of an ear infection requiring an immediate hit of antibiotics justifies the faith I have in her capacity for being able to do her watch while weathering a blow in good humour.
Eden is one of those places that you always say, ’Nuh we won’t stop there this time.’ when you cast off, but invariably becomes more attractive the closer you get. These days I’m resigned to the fact that a stopover and dinner at the Eden Fisherman’s club is as much a part of the norm as is the walk up the hill to get there. But, with just the two of us on board, combined with an ear ache, this couple of tired old yachties opted for fish and chips from the local at the end of the wharf, washed down with a glass or three of Yellow tail chardonnay and an early night.
Friday morning saw Vic head off to the Doc while I topped up the diesel before we headed out into the Tasman one more time, bound for Sydney and an over night passage to complete the six hundred odd mile journey before we can really begin the cruising component of our winter sojourn to Queensland. So refuelled, doped up with drugs and ready to rock n roll we left Eden in our wake around 1100 that morning.
Motor sailing under the main and a little bit of heads’l I used the time off watch to drive the phone and arrange digs at the CYCA for a night or two. After checking out the extortionate rates around Sydney for a swing mooring for a month I have opted for a mooring at Lake Macquarie at less than one third the cost and fifty miles closer to Queensland. We have to head back to that other reality in the next week or two, with every second month of my life finding me driving tugs in Port Hedland so keeping the mortgage man happy, before we can rejoin Tubby and our other life at sea.
As anyone who does a few miles will tell you, there is much to be said for preventative maintenance. A couple of months ago I made a mental note to service the steering gear and of course, as it was working well, this job kept on slipping to the bottom of the list. Still the nagging thought pestered me occasionally but didn’t get attended to prior to casting off amidst all the other nonsense that was going on at the time.
In due course and somewhere off Wineglass a little bit of a squeak from back aft started to intermittently cry for some attention and still I chose to pretend it wasn’t relevant. Naturally, 30 miles east of the northern tip of Flinders Island, in 20 knots out of the south west and a typical Bass Strait two metre lump, the auto pilot failed due to too much load on the helm caused by a lack of grease. I finally got around to servicing the steering, with Vic on the helm, Tubby rolling her proverbials out and me trying to clean out the old grease and get new grease into the worm drive while concurrently attempting to keep all ten of my digits. Although the service was successful the message was as clear as it was simple. I should have known better!
In any event, we finally lobbed into the CYCA and although booked in for two nights, with a 30 to 40 knot sou’wester forecast in the next day or two I opted to cut Sydney short and get on up the creek while the going was good. So, with a leisurely sail to Refuge Cove in the Hawkesbury on Sunday and then a seven hour romp up to Lake Macquarie on the Monday morning we are now sitting snugged away in Mark’s Point Marina, the wind starting to build, the glass on the way down (actually both glasses, mine and the barometer) and the Alan Lucas NSW & Queensland guides for our next four weeks off in July are the hot topic.
Tubby has also recently received a bit of a tickle up that needed a serious sea trial. Some of you may recall seeing her on the club slip under the crane, the rig hauled out and Marcus Ohnn wielding a welder over a new mast step on the foredeck nearly three feet for’d of the rig’s historic base on the coach house.
After a few years of contemplating the cause and effect of an excruciating amount of weather helm I had finally bitten the bullet and committed Tubby to having her balance changed. Subsequently, there have been a number of queries from the marine architects whose offices are strategically located in the back bar of the club as to how effective the rig adjustment has been. To cut a long story short, moving the rig forward has been a resounding success and the old girl now feels like a boat rather than a tram decked out in floaties.
But back to Triabunna and one of our favourite pubs on the Tassie coast and turning left instead of right on our departure from this fine establishment. I’d been waiting on a phone call to clarify whether I was required in Hobart the following week or not and when the call came through and the decision was a resounding ‘Probably not.” we decided that this was enough to push our collective button.
Vic and I were hoping my old sailing buddy Jimmy Mc Cormack would be able to do the passage with us but as usual, time and commitments interfered and so we were two across the Strait, with one small but extremely significant asset, Arnold the auto-pilot. This little item means life aboard is a significant departure from the bad old days when going to sea was a life risking raw adventure that required skill sets that to some extent are now forgotten. Sextants are now housed in museums, fully waterproof designer wet weather gear is the norm and auto pilots and chart plotters are as obligatory on a cruising yacht as piston hanks on headsails and a tot of rum at the end of your watch once were. I even have an Ipad with a $45 Navionics app that performs admirably as a back up chart plotter.
In recent months, my mate Wabbler and I have been having an ongoing discussion as to how cold it gets in Tassie in the winter time and just how much warmer the weather gets if you head north. I have to tell you Billy, that when you get frost bite from wiping the ice off as you coil the shore power lead, Tassie is bloody cold. And as I write this, sitting in Refuge Cove in the Hawkesbury, wearing only a t-shirt I think this argument is one I’m gong to win.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. Having made the decision that with a weather forecast, to quote that guru of Bass Strait weather predictions, Kenny Batt, was ‘purrrfect’, and the ring around the moon promising a south westerly in the next day or two was all I needed for a dash across the pond, we opted to get the hell out of Tassie while the going was good and we’d figure out the details later. Funnily enough Bass Strait was it’s typical self, enough current setting to the south to have an argument with the 10 to 20 knot south westerlies we took with us resulting in the waves being higher than they were long and plenty of pot holes along the way.
But, that’s Bass Strait for you and other than Vic being a little uncharacteristically off colour, the 340 odd mile run from Triabunna through to Eden was one of the less eventful crossings I’ve made, completed in a little over two days. Two up is never my preferred option for passages. The demands of keeping proper watches weary the best of men, but I dips my lid to Vic, whose subsequent diagnosis at the Eden Quackery of an ear infection requiring an immediate hit of antibiotics justifies the faith I have in her capacity for being able to do her watch while weathering a blow in good humour.
Eden is one of those places that you always say, ’Nuh we won’t stop there this time.’ when you cast off, but invariably becomes more attractive the closer you get. These days I’m resigned to the fact that a stopover and dinner at the Eden Fisherman’s club is as much a part of the norm as is the walk up the hill to get there. But, with just the two of us on board, combined with an ear ache, this couple of tired old yachties opted for fish and chips from the local at the end of the wharf, washed down with a glass or three of Yellow tail chardonnay and an early night.
Friday morning saw Vic head off to the Doc while I topped up the diesel before we headed out into the Tasman one more time, bound for Sydney and an over night passage to complete the six hundred odd mile journey before we can really begin the cruising component of our winter sojourn to Queensland. So refuelled, doped up with drugs and ready to rock n roll we left Eden in our wake around 1100 that morning.
Motor sailing under the main and a little bit of heads’l I used the time off watch to drive the phone and arrange digs at the CYCA for a night or two. After checking out the extortionate rates around Sydney for a swing mooring for a month I have opted for a mooring at Lake Macquarie at less than one third the cost and fifty miles closer to Queensland. We have to head back to that other reality in the next week or two, with every second month of my life finding me driving tugs in Port Hedland so keeping the mortgage man happy, before we can rejoin Tubby and our other life at sea.
As anyone who does a few miles will tell you, there is much to be said for preventative maintenance. A couple of months ago I made a mental note to service the steering gear and of course, as it was working well, this job kept on slipping to the bottom of the list. Still the nagging thought pestered me occasionally but didn’t get attended to prior to casting off amidst all the other nonsense that was going on at the time.
In due course and somewhere off Wineglass a little bit of a squeak from back aft started to intermittently cry for some attention and still I chose to pretend it wasn’t relevant. Naturally, 30 miles east of the northern tip of Flinders Island, in 20 knots out of the south west and a typical Bass Strait two metre lump, the auto pilot failed due to too much load on the helm caused by a lack of grease. I finally got around to servicing the steering, with Vic on the helm, Tubby rolling her proverbials out and me trying to clean out the old grease and get new grease into the worm drive while concurrently attempting to keep all ten of my digits. Although the service was successful the message was as clear as it was simple. I should have known better!
In any event, we finally lobbed into the CYCA and although booked in for two nights, with a 30 to 40 knot sou’wester forecast in the next day or two I opted to cut Sydney short and get on up the creek while the going was good. So, with a leisurely sail to Refuge Cove in the Hawkesbury on Sunday and then a seven hour romp up to Lake Macquarie on the Monday morning we are now sitting snugged away in Mark’s Point Marina, the wind starting to build, the glass on the way down (actually both glasses, mine and the barometer) and the Alan Lucas NSW & Queensland guides for our next four weeks off in July are the hot topic.
