Over Christmas and New Year we spent a wonderful ten days up at Magnetic Island. The weather was perfect and we found some great anchorages with the light north easterly breezes that we were lucky to have had. The water was clear and warm and the skies blue and cloudless each day. Magnetic is a really understated place that doesn't get the mentions it should. There is some beautiful anchorages and on the island itself there's also some great walks wit no around and this was the busy season! I spent time up there with my very old and close friends on their Catamaran Tigerlily, rafting up most days and relaxing with a nice cold beer in the hammock. We managed to get out and go sailing on both boats one day and I gave Tigerlily one of Spirit's old asymmetrical spinnakers for Christmas. She looked great with it up and made good speed with the main and jib only on Spirit we weren't able to catch her down wind with our angles being to great and her running way deeper. It was a blast. The sail home was fantastic we managed to break the "just fixed prodder" again in a different place this time and once we rounded Cape Bowling Green we had smooth seas and a beautiful light breeze from the east to north east that didn't even produce a white cap. Spirit loved the 60 degree apparent wind angle and took off like a shot sitting happily on 8-15kts all the way home. The sail home took fifteen hours, which compared to the just under eleven hours to magnetic was a little slow. On the way up to Magnetic we managed an average of 12kts and on the way home managed 8kts.
0 Comments
Sorry for the really slow posts on my blog. It seems life gets in the way of me sitting and putting all this stuff down on the blog. Since the last post I've been busy working in NZ for five weeks and have only a week ago returned to Spirit here in the Whitsunday Islands. It's been great getting back as there was a pile of stuff I needed to do to get Spirit ready for our Christmas cruise to Magnetic Island. We plan to meet some close friends up there on there 49ft Cat and to do some sailing together, which has been a dream of ours since we were kids growing up together in Sydney. After nearly two months of not cleaning Spirit's bum it was well and truly time to give her some love. A job I thought was going to be nasty turned out to be pretty easy. My father had some really great wide and flexible paint scrapers that we used. And as there was a fair amount or more like a carpet it came off really easy in one foul scrap! We had to be careful though not to scratch any anti foul off with the flexible blades but after a few goes it was easy. After the scraping we gave her a quick scrub as well with a green doodle pad. Another of the big jobs was to install some new B&G 20/20's that I had bought from a great friend in NZ. He had a few spare so I was able to pick em up at a really reasonable price, which made replacing them easier. I removed the console that they're installed in and painted it along with the speakers. We used Jotun Pengaurd high build and then did a top coat of Jotun Imperite 300 white. Came up pretty nice considering it was a quick job with a roller. I've also removed all the varnish I had onboard. There wasn't a lot but it's such a pain to maintain so we now have oiled timber. I'm using organ oil and it's real easy to apply and looks great. I'll do a coat every month and see how it holds up. The water-maker has been put back into the boat. It's now installed in a much better spot under the fridge and the membrane is now under the sink area so none of it's in the way. It's really hidden and makes more room on the interior now. There's two new solar panels on the floats where the old ones were. I've used some 6 gauge wiring from a mate good quality stuff as well as he said I was using to smaller wiring for the long run we had. It's great to be getting these small jobs done and things like the new solar panels and better wiring make all the difference. Spirit will easily run off the 240 watts of solar we have onboard. The panels easily run the fridge and stereo along with the autopilot while we are at sea. Other small things we charge through USB like the iPad and iPhone are easily kept in charged. We love being self reliant! The autopilot connection was pretty crappy and needed a lot of attention so that's been upgraded and the two Bose speakers were replaced with new ones so we have some pumping tunes now in the cockpit ;-) We cracked the Prodder a few months ago so have now removed the track that ran up it and also all of the metallic fitting that were bolted or screwed to it. We'll now lash any fittings to the prodder and it'll be a heap lighter with out all the metal on it. It's also going to allow us to tack the light air sails further out near the end as the track used to stop a good 20cm before the end. Next week we hope to leave for Magnetic Island and will try and do the 120nm run in a day. I'll update again soon with new from how the trip up went. Thought we'd do a little bit on the blog about one of my favourite places and to be honest of the best sailing and cruising grounds there is around, the Whitsunday Islands and a trip we recently did south to Keswick Island. I've been fortunate enough to sail around this area since I was a kid. We first sailed here as a family during 1989 onboard our 54ft ketch Japara. The memories are still vivid and it was my first taste of true paradise and sailing as a kid so it has a special place in my heart. The Whitsundays are a group of 74 Islands that are located on the central Queensland coast. Most people will know them that read this but some may not so I'll give some basic details here and will also put a few of my favourite spots. The Islands start just off shore from Mackay and run north towards Bowen. The two largest and main Islands are Hook and Whitsunday. These two are around 15nm offshore from Airlie Beach as prove to be the most popular with some of the best anchorages and beaches. There is also some amazing walks to be had in the area as well. We have been fortunate enough over the last few months to have some fairly calm weather with light northerlies that have hung in for days and even a few weeks. Meaning we've been able to get out around the Islands to the south that are normally more exposed with the strong trades that blow in the area. Last trip we did we made it down to Shaw Island just south of Linderman and were able to anchor just off the beach putting out the stern anchor and sitting in around 5ft of water at low tide. It was awesome and with the dead calm conditions it was surreal to wake up in the morning to rich turquoise ocean of glass. From Shaw we sailed down to Cockermouth where we spent a nice night at anchor before heading to Keswick early the following mooring. On the way down to Cockermouth we passed several schools of dolphins and also a mother whale and her calm slowly swimming south. This time of the year there is so much wildlife around it's awe inspiring! There are moorings at Keswick that you can use but these group of Islands don't really have a great all round anchorage, they are really best visited in calms or when the winds are low and seas calm. The water between Keswick and St Bees is deep and there is strong tidal flows between them so it can be a difficult and ordinary anchorage so making use of the moorings is best advised. We spent a nice night down at Keswick visiting some close friends and having a nice lunch ashore at their home. With the anchorage not being the best we only stayed the one night before sailing back to Shaw. We had a nice light north east wind that went further east as we sailed north. It was a great run up and Spirit sat happily on 8-9 kts upwind. Just awesome flat seas where we don't get wet is the best when we sail to wind. Anything above 15kts and we start to get pretty wet onboard. We were the only boat at Shaw Island, well on this side anyway. There wasn't another boat to be seen and we once again dropped the anchor in shallow water and put out the stern anchor to secure Spirit and allow us to get in closer to the beach. We spent another two days here lying around and just relaxing, cooking, eating, reading, sleeping and paddling out SUP's around exploring. You'd think you'd get bored doing nothing all the time but that's just it. After a few days your body just seems to get into the swing of things and everything seems to slow down. You seem to love in slow motion and your body clock adjust to the sunrises and sunsets. It feels incredibly natural and healthy to live like this and one finds that the day fills with the little things like cooking and looking after oneself. It's so nice to have the time listen to be able to hear yourself and to hear what's important to you and that you need to be happy. I'm sounding a bit deep here but life is truly so simple we do need so little to be happy. For myself it's just the ability to live freely and simple that I enjoy most and to have the ability to do things without the normal day to day rush. From Shaw Island we headed north to Hamilton where we picked up some more fresh fruit and veg. After nearly a week on our own at Shaw the sudden influx of people and things was intense and we quickly chose to get out of there and move onto May's Bay another favourite anchorage just south of Hook Passage. It's a great spot as there's normally no one else there and you get to see an awesome sunset if the weather's right over the Molle Group of Islands. Next day it was off to Nara inlet. This has to be one of the best all round anchorages within the Whitsunday group as it's calm in most winds and provides great shelter from nearly all directions. We tucked right up in the end of the main arm where the water's flat and wind was just barely noticeable. If it's blowing strong directly from the south it can have a little bit of chop enter but I've never seen it really bad in here. We enjoyed a day here paddling, swimming and relaxing before we sailed back to the mainland. This group of Islands is a must place to visit and sail around and I hope this little story of one of our adventures here inspires you to do just that ;-) I've also posted a few new videos on our youtube page so if you'd like to see some more of the area check them out. Here's a nice little time-lapse video a family friend made. This was a day we had out with family sailing out to Hook Island in the Whitsundays. We had about 18-22 kts of breeze from the SE and were sitting on 18kts on the way out and a solid 22kts on the way back into town. We ended up putting a stress crack in the prodder on the way out as we were a touch over powered with the small reacher up. Fun day had by all!! Anyone that has been reading the blog often will know that on the sail home across the Pacific we just happened to be at a few places at the right time for certain regattas. This is what really gave us our taste for doing some more serious ones while back in Australia. When we arrived in Brisbane in December, we were approached by a sponsor who encouraged us to participate with Spirit in the Brisbane to Gladstone 2013 Yacht Race. It was the results of B2G that encouraged us to plan for the Airlie Beach Race Week Regatta, however we realised that the old sails were well past their “Use by Date”. The next questions were could we organise new sails in time? Can we get a crew together? Will the boat be ready in time? Having arrived back from a delivery to Fiji from Cairns about a month prior, we felt we had enough time to get it all done. The sails had been ordered from Hyde UK and it was just some small details we had to iron out with the final measurements before ordering. We wanted to make some changes with the mainsail compared to the old one we wanted a larger square top and also larger jib, we really wanted to max the jib size out but with the sail designers being in the UK and us in Australia it was up to us to get the sizes right, which meant we made it just a touch too big. Abell Point Marina was chosen as our base for the month prior and with word that the marina was now under new ownership and set for significant upgrades, we were keen to check it out. After checking in with a friend and staff member of the Abell Point Marina team, I was overwhelmed with the the new vision and plans for the marina. Plans included development of public access areas, upgrades of on-site amenities and associated tourism facilities and the establishment of a shaded park for community use. There will also be extensive dredging work inside the marina wall to depths never experienced in the history of the marina. With a list a mile long we set about servicing winches and removing all deck gear and getting Spirit ready for race week. Dave Chittleborough (Chippy) reinforced the deck to hull join below the jib tracks and also patched an old hole from where we pulled out a padeye during the Brisbane to Gladstone. We reinforced the winch bases and removed all the cruising great, which never ceases to amaze me. The amount of stuff that the little boat can fit on, it is incredible! With the sails set to arrive two weeks prior we had some time for the modifications that were needed as I’d gone a bit too far with the dimensions I’d sent to Hyde. We were tyring to squeeze in the maximum size for the new jib and it ended up needing the head chopped off and the clew was also chopped off with a batten being fitted, which allowed for the clew to have two sheeting points instead of just the one. Once we had refitted all the winches and deck gear it was time to do sail trials and with the Whitsundays at our doorstep, what better location to adjust sails and tune ready for racing. A great deal of the year the winds are from the southeast. This gives you an awesome beam reach to the northwest tip of Hook Island around Stonehaven or Langford. It’s a blast reaching out to it’s best sitting on 18-20kts with the main hull skimming the water and Spirit flying over the wave tops. With the incoming tide you get a nice little chop and Spirit revelled in it. With some fine tunning the sails were working and looking great. We had them measured by Shane Bayer for our OMR rating and we were all set to compete in Airlie Beach Race Week. We decided that we would go with the least amount of crew we could for race week. The forecast was looking light and weight plays a big role onboard Spirit in the light airs. We had young Dan Townsend, Andrew Mosley, Wazza Innes and also Dave Chittleborough for crew along with myself. Dave and Wazza were to work the pit as we call it and Andrew was foredeck while Dan floated and called numbers while we were sailing the longer legs. Race one was a blast out around the Cones and back. We didn’t get off to a great start as one of the mast rotation lines got caught around our new rope constrictor clutches that were supplied by AllYacht Spars in Brisbane. If you haven’t seen these things do yourself a favour and check them out! When the mast rotation was pulled it also caught the line for the clutch dropping about two meters of halyard while we were running with our small screecther up! We had “Bullet Proof” below us and couldn’t run off so had to work hard and get the halyard onto and winch and back under tension while trying to still race. It was full station in the pit but Wazza and Chippy managed to keep things under control and get us moving again quickly. About a third the way out to the Cones we realised that we were running way to and were totally underpowered compared with the other boats. Before the start we’d checked the angles but between then and now the breeze had shifted south. So up went the big reacher and off we went with more power allowing us to run deeper angles at speed. We slowly reeled in the other boats and were about the fifth boat around Olden Island. Once around Olden we were on the breeze again which is where Spirit loves to be. With Chippy having done ten race weeks his local knowledge proved invaluable here and we ran as close to the coast as we could. Getting some incredible lifts along the way and staying well out of the tide and chop. We went past Indian Chief and Hot Vindaloo here and made some serious miles on the front-runners. After an awesome beat to windward we crossed the line fifth on OMR, which we were all pretty happy with considering our start. Race two couldn’t have been more different. The wind went super light under 10kts and the race ended up being shortened with the boats doing the Pioneer Bay large triangle course and finishing at Pioneer Rocks. We did really well this day in the light and managed to get a third placing which was to everyone’s surprise. Race three proved difficult and eventually the start line was moved out into the passage where the wind line was. The race was around the Molle group of Islands and White Rock near Shute Harbor back to Pioneer Bay. We started in around 7kts from the SE and beat up towards North Molle. We hugged the tip of Molle as we know the tide floods around the point there. With the lack of wind we were looking for anything to help us get South around South Molle and even though we did run into a hole that lasted a few minutes it was a real bonus to have the tide sending us south. From here we hugged the coast and tide line until we were able to get around Denman and off to White Rock. It was a crazy race as we were on the breeze all the way to Denman then we ran across the passage to White Rock where the wind died out and came in from the North! It was great racing and the guys had to work constantly moving their weight around and changing sails to eek out every little bit of forward motion we could. Once around White Rock we put the light air reacher up and followed Morticia and Mad Max sticking close to the coast looking for wind. We had a great result this day and came in third on OMR. The following day was a lay day and a few of the boys and girls from Hot Vindaloo joined us for a trip out to Daydream Island where we lazed around in the sun enjoying some ice cold beers and fine scenery the Whitsundays has to offer. It was incredible that the wind just didn’t seem to be filling in for the series. You can normally count on at least one or two days of 20-25kts but not this year it was just not going to happen. Race four saw the race committee put on windward leeward’s for the multis. It was a glass out and the wind just didn’t seem to be coming in so most of the multis opted to raft up and make a megamaran. The beers and BS was starting to flow fast so when the race committee came onto the radio to announce the course and starts there was some surprise amongst us. Once underway it was painful for us as Spirit is just under four ton she takes a while to get moving and in the super light windward-leewards were hard work. The whale at the top mark made for an interesting rounding and in the first race we did ok getting another fifth place. It was a shame that the 2nd race was cancelled but we could understand why in the next to nothing breeze that we had. Race five was another passage race and they gave us the Gumbrell Island race. It was another super light air day with next to no wind, with fine scenery and turquoise water surrounding us. We had a good start considering the amount of boats that were still on the line from the other Divisions starts. Between the top mark and the start line were boats from all divisions making it very tricky in the light airs to not hit anyone and to get by and on our way. We squeezed through two monos with feet to spare and once around the top mark with the big reacher up we were off. Once around Grimston Point we headed straight to Gumbrell and with the wind again shifting North it ended up being close hauled all the way. Once around Gumbrell we headed west to Olden where we found some serious breeze and we were off along with everyone else. It looked as though it was going to fill in so we had to dump the big reacher and put up the smaller one. From here the wind died out again and headed us. It was crazy the amount of wind changes and wind strengths we were getting in one day. Up ahead we could see Malice, Morticia and Mad Max. We stayed in close to the coast gain looking for a lift and also tide to get us around Grimston. Incredibly we found a huge lift once near Grimston and with the tide heading south we were pushed around the point. The finish was shortened and we ducked across the line in 2nd on OMR. The final race six was set to be a goodie, as there was finally going to be a little wind with some consistency. We ended up having around 15-18kts of wind and you could see that things within the standings would have been a lot different should we have had a few more days like this. It’s where the cats just started to get moving and once flying a hull they were all off. It was great seeing them liven up and boogie around the course. The race committee gave us a Pioneer Triangle again for the last race and it was great. We had a good start and where hanging onto the leaders. Once around the Grimston mark though I decided to head back into the bay looking for less tide. This wasn’t a good decision and after a few minutes we could see the other boats out wide powered up much more than us so we decided to head back out into the passage looking for the breeze. It was a much better move and Spirit enjoyed being powered up with the other boats. We had a few issues onboard and lost a little time tacking. The guys worked hard to keep the boat going fast and we tried hard to hang onto the front runners. You could see the cats though were making some big gains on everyone when going downwind and being passed by Malice flying her hull was an awesome site. We had a good close race with Hot Vindaloo being taken on the downwind legs to catch them again on the windward legs was great fun. After a good few hours racing we managed to cross the line in 7th on OMR not our best result but not bad considering the people and boats we were racing. In the end and very much to our surprise Spirit came in 2nd on OMR in division 1. At the start we just wanted to have a great time racing be safe and enjoy doing what we all love. So for us to get a place was a huge bonus. Airlie Beach Race Week has become a huge success over the last few years. The acceptance of Multis into it and the hard work from the volunteers and sponsors and the great setting it's held in is why it’s growing every year. I think there needs to be a special thank you to people like Shane Beyer that organised all the measuring and weighing of boats for the OMR rule so there was no complaints or confusion at the end of racing. The Whitsunday Yacht Club and all their volunteers along with the Abell Point Marina that was the major sponsor and organised all the berthing for competing boats. I’d also like to thank Allyacht Spars, Hyde Sails and Power By Nature whom either sponsored us or helped us get the boat onto the race track with their great service and help. Also our race crew that put in the hard yards, before, during and after the event, thank you! |
Details
Archives
November 2016
Categories |