We were sailing

On Sunday we were lucky enough to have some great weather and took our boats out. We took out both of the dinghy we have, both my parent's Vagabond and my Fireball. It was a good day, despite both of the boats needing some repairs that we have been putting off since we last used them. The fireball needed a pintle for the rudder put back on after this trip. The vagabond needed the line that hauls up the centerboard to be fixed. That line had been getting sun burned for some time and on the last trip it finally failed, thankfully both were easy fixes.

Before bolting the pintle back on I put some silicone onto the back of it to ensure that water can't get into the buoyancy chamber at the back. I put way too much on but it is a lot easier to clean up a little silicone before it sets then to repair a rotted out hull.

The vagabond all hooked up and ready to go. To put the new line in the centerboard we had to lift the boat up, drop the centerboard out then run the new line through the hole in it and then put it all back in. Not very long to do thankfully.

This is the lake now. I have never seen it this full before. WE have been very lucky and gotten a lot of rain recently. The ground now has so much water in it that almost as soon as we get significant rain now it starts running off and into the rivers and dams.

For a comparison this is what it looked like before. Where the above photo was taken is further up the bank to the right. Quite a long way up.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos while we were sailing, but it was a very good day for it and we got some good speed up. Nicole did very well as crew, despite me putting the leeward rail into the water quite a long way a few times.

Cheers,
Rex

A Great week away.

Last week I was lucky enough to go out sailing on the Tall Ship James Craig. We sailed from Sydney up to Broken Bay, spent most of the week up there. Then sailed back down on Thursday with some great weather and managing to get some significant sail set.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Fore Course and Topsails in their gear ready to help us up to Broken Bay.

The Main watch only had 2 sails to look after on the way up.

The sails on the Fore Mast set and drawing on the way up.

Just around the corner from where we anchored.

Everything furled and packed away for the night.

It's difficult to get a good picture of the moon with a phone.

Just before the sun came up on Tuesday. I was lucky enough to get the last anchor watch.

Looking up river to the railway bridge.

That's a lot of water.

That's now a lot of sky. It was pretty rolly until about lunch on Tuesday.

Back on the anchor Tuesday afternoon.

No moon on Wednesday Morning.

Looking out at the big blue wet thing.

Still at anchor. That looks a lot closer from deck than it does from the chartplotter.

Had a couple of rainy patches on Wednesday.

A bit clearer now.

Perfect timing. Just after coming down from the royal yard.

Thursday morning. Going sailing out there.

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We actually managed to sail of the anchor on Thursday. Here is the full Fore Stack set.

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We did get a little bit of rain, however it wasn't too heavy to ruin the great sailing.

Back in Rose Bay with the Anchor Lights set.

Not too bad of a morning.

This is where I slept for the trip.

The wind was starting to get up a little before we left Rose Bay.

One of my duties was the anchor locker. This means that as we raise the anchor 4 of us would flake out the chain so it is nice and even so it can't topple over and get a knot in it as we try to drop the anchor next.
This is what it looked like as we were anchored.

Here it is filled up with the anchor retrived.

This is the bottom of the hawse pipe where the chain comes down into the locker. You can just see a hand in the background. They are probably about a meter behind the front wall of the locker.

Well it does everything a boat should

It sure does, it floats, sails and breaks. There wasn't much wind but the hull is driven really easily. Even with the very light wind we were still moving along. Not very fast mind you, but we did get there until better wind came along.

This was the first time out in a new boat and it's been some time since I've been sailing on a dinghy so we took a chase boat along as well. 

Here she is, tarped up and with the mud washed off ready for bed. I do need to get a bigger tarp but I should be able to sort that out in the next few days.

Now being a boat there is always something broken. Today we managed to break off one of the jib sheet redirection blocks. These were mounted to pieces of an old kitchen chopping board which turns out couldn't handle the strain. The turning blocks for the spinnaker sheets are in nearly the same spot so we can use those until I can make up some new mounting blocks.

Also the centerboard is very tight in the casing. It was fine to start with, but after lunch it ended up taking us nearly half an hour to get it down, but thankfully after that we got some good sailing in. So the board will need to be taken out and sanded down so that when the timber swells there will still be space inside the casing.

However this is the biggest problem. One of the pintles that hold the rudder on had come loose and nearly fallen off by the time we came in at the end of the day. Unfortunately when these were installed with plain nuts when these should've been locknuts or had jamb nuts installed. Thankfully we didn't loose the pintle so a simple trip to the hardware store will supply the parts to fix this properly.

Cheers,

Rex

Amazing what a few coats of paint can do

Finally more progress has been made on the Fireball. We originally saw it here. About a year ago when I went for a drive up to Queensland and came back with the Fireball on the back of a borrowed trailer.

More recently we saw me getting a trailer of my own for it here.

Well, it now has nearly enough paint and varnish on it that we can splash soon again. My brother has put a few coats on the bottom and between us to date we have put 2 coats of paint in the cockpit and 2 coats of varnish on the deck. With the varnish on it started to look quite special, particularly remembering what it did look like before we started to repaint.

Below are some photos of the work in progress.

Just started sanding the deck. Not a very fun job I must say.

This is where I stopped for dinner. We didn't get a chance to start again until the next morning because the pain in the cockpit was still a bit wet in a few spots and we were hoping to keep most of the sanding dust out of the paint. You can see the whole deck except for the bits around the cockpit have been sanded and are pretty well ready for varnish.

This is the beginning of the light board that will sit on the back of the trailer to hold the number plate and lights. Nathan made it from a scrap piece of timber left over from repairing the verandah at their house. We ended up painting it to match the cockpit as we already had the paint out and being an exterior house paint it should handle being out in the weather.

All ready to go, wiped down with a damp rag then time to apply. We put the paint in the cockpit together then while that was starting to dry I put the varnish on. This was easier for 1 person to do because we only had one tin of varnish.

And here is the finished product after 2 coats. It was still a bit damp here so looks shinyer than it will once finished. But it certainly gives a nice look to the timber. It will probably need another coat or 2 as before we put this one on there were still some checks and weathered bits of timber that had soaked up all they could and were dry again.

So far on the 2 coats we have used probably a hair more than half of the tin we bought of varnish.

Hopefully the next update will start with a picture of the boat in the water with all sails drawing well. But we'll see. There are still a few bits a pieces that need to be done on the trailer first.

Cheers,
Rex