ST21 'Skinnydip' build, and boating adventures, Noosa, Australia

[gonandkarl]

Hi Michael,
Congratulations to Your wedding aniversery, we are celebrating our 49 th one on Saturday.
I love following your sailing route.
Greetings from Karl

[glossieblack]

Hi Michael,
Congratulations to Your wedding aniversery, we are celebrating our 49 th one on Saturday.
I love following your sailing route.
Greetings from Karl

Great hearing from you Karl! The child bride and I will be raising a glass and toasting you and yours on your 49th on Saturday.

In last night's anchorage wind gusts were strong enough to blow a dog of a chain, producing wind-on-tide standing waves violent enough to render made sleeping aboard Great Sandy a fitful affair.

So this morning we decided to poke our way further up the southern arm of Port Clinton to a known but unreliably mapped anchorage offering greater protrction. Unreliably mapped because large sand and mud shoals in its final approaches are forever cshifting.

Tonight we're in the beautufully remote and snug anchorage (first pic), but approaching it we hit then had tp plough through a sub-surface mud bank (pic 2).

We'll sleep well tonight!

[TomW1]

Doesn't that boat of yours know how to keep right in deep water by this time. Shoot even our new Hyundai will guide itself around a curve.

Tom

[cape man]

Go Glossieback! Hope you're having as much fun as we are! We crossed into Canada yesterday and while the weather has been dismal the spirits are still high! Mud banks are just a thang.

[glossieblack]

Shoot even our new Hyundai will guide itself around a curve.

Only if her driver hands over control. I'm a control freak, so at times come unstuck qnd gert stuck on mud.

Go Glossieback! Hope you're having as much fun as we are! We crossed into Canada yesterday and while the weather has been dismal the spirits are still high! Mud banks are just a thang.

Enjoy Canada you two kids! Having lived in both Canada and the USA, we loved both peoples. Culturally different, but equally impressive in their own distictive way.

[glossieblack]

This morning the fierce winds abbated so departed the sheltered waters of the upper south arm of Port Clintom Queensland and worked our way back down to the lower estaury of Port Clinton (image below), working against a still rising tide in case we ran aground.

Tonight we're anchored in Port Clinton's lower estaury ready to depart tomorow morning first lignt to head 60 nautical miles north-west to the Percy Islands Queensland, one of Australia's most cherished cruising-sailing meccas.

[glossieblack]

Since last Friday I have been trying to post progress passing reports to no avail - I suspect due to Murphy’s law combination of weak internet coverage at my end and system upgrade disruptions at BBC end. Regardless, I am now going to attempt to post retrospective daily passaging reports one at a time.

On Friday May 26 we had a lively motor sail the sail from Port Clinton to South Percy Island in the Percy Isles group. Lively, because after an initial deviation to avoid a military reserve closure, our rhumb line run had the 10-15 knot wind directly astern with 4–6-foot following seas. We were running, at times surfing, downhill, with the 2-reefed main either all the way out port or starboard, pinned down by the boom brake, with a gybe preventer line rigged as belts and braces. We had to manage controlled gybes at least a dozen times.

Our track for the day is shown in the first image, our entry into South Percy Islands protective anchorage from southern quarters is the second image, and a sundowners happy hour snap is the third.

[Jaysen]

Congratulations on the successful completion of a tricky run. If you find yourself in similar conditions, and it is safe, I would enjoy a quick snap of the running configuration. are you wing & wing with a pole and preventer, a big kite and main on preventer? I'm just curious and sometimes a picture is easier than explaining

The posting issues should reduce as it looks like the front-end tools (not the upgrade I did) have some new options that should improve the post speed and reduce the annoying security checks. No promises though. Sorry you had issues over the weekend.

[BarraMan]

We were running, at times surfing, downhill, with the 2-reefed main either all the way out port or starboard, pinned down by the boom brake, with a gybe preventer line rigged as belts and braces. We had to manage controlled gybes at least a dozen times.

That’s pretty much how I would have handled it too, Michael!

[glossieblack]

... are you wing & wing with a pole and preventer, a big kite and main on preventer?

Ha, I wish.

These days the child bride will only agree to come cruising if she is excused from all sail-handling tasks, so I have set myself a strict rule that when running deep down-wind, to sail cautiously by:
- poling out a headsail that can be furled easily from the cockpit with the pole still set, and with the main still in the sail bag, or
- booming out the main and pinning the boom with the boom brake and with a preventer as extra insurance against unmanaged gybes, with no headsail set, or
- in light conditions, both the above at once, or
- in light conditions and when the wind is more from an aft quarter, flying the asymmetrical spinnaker with the main still in the sail bag.

More ambitious solo sail-handling combinations have been ruled out by this 77-year-old salt.

Last Sunday we passaged 65 nautical miles from South Percy Island to Scawfell Island. Our course was north-west, and the wind was a southerly of fluctuating strength, so we were able to sail or motor-sail using a free flying headsail.

Thanks for the laugh BarraMan, and congrats on your wedding anniversay Karl.

The first pic below shows our route from South Percy Island to Scawfell Island, the second our approach to Scawfell, our Refuge Bay anchorage.