Shake down cruise # 2 - Ross River to Magnetic Island

The Teria was back on the road again on the 24th December, she already towed better with the trailer modifications. 

I arrived at the coast Guard ramp in Townsville about 9 am on 30th December but it was soon apparent that all the trailer spaces were already full.  

Had a chat with the coast guard officer on duty, the boat-trailer car park was filled at about 4.30 AM by recreational fishermen. It was the annual Christmas and New Year holiday plus the weather forecast was for light winds and flat seas - a perfect combination for a packed-out boat park. In desperation some boaters had parked on the councils grass nature strips, only to risk getting slapped with a $50 fine from the council.  The Port Authority runs the Coast guard ramps and boat trailer-park but the city council is responsible for all the surrounding nature strips etc. The ironic thing was cars without trailers or even tow-bars were allowed to take up valuable boat-trailer parking space, counted at least 5 solo cars there and it's still legal to do this on weekdays. The nearby casino car parks could have accommodated these solo cars who don't pay annual boat or trailer registration fees (around $400 pa). Meanwhile some guys religiously paying their rego fees are also paying parking fines for going on the grass,  I hope the authorities get together and sort it out one day soon.

It was suggested by the coast guard officer that we try the Barnicle street ramp at Ross River, so once my crew Ricky arrived we headed over there and found it had plenty of spaces available. It's run by the Townsville city council and there were upgrades and expansions done in recent years. It's a relatively quiet ramp , possibly because it's about 2 km to the Ross river mouth and an extra 1 km to Magnetic Island. However, the big deterrent for all masted vessels  is the new low-slung port access bridge over the river entrance, which has a low clearance of only 6.5 m which is not even enough for a trailer sailer. The Port Authority built a new harbor to seaward of the bridge for the prawn trawler fleet and Ross Haven ship yard  within the new port reclamation area. Townsville based Yachts now have to moor in the marinas or anchor in the more exposed  break wall near the casino. There was a proposal a couple of years ago, for a river break-wall seaward of the bridge and pile moorings for yachts too but this may have not been approved.

Fortunately we have a tabernacled mast and I hoped that it could be possible to motor out and raise the mast to seaward of the low bridge. Ricky was an experienced catamaran sailer and fisherman having owned two Cobra 16 cats and a 14 foot runabout, and the weather was good, so felt confident we could try the unusual sailing ground of Ross River.

We launched with only a few big pushes this time and tied up at the floating pontoon.

Mast down at the floating pontoon on Ross River

Then motored past the nearly deserted pile moorings, inhabited by a few motor launches and several yachts trapped in there until they can figure out how to lower their masts. A couple of yachts at anchor had their masts lowered and had mast lowering-raising systems with tabernacles and sheer legs. 

Once  we passed the bridge, we anchored in a quiet spot behind a natural sand-bar on the natural river entrance. After checking that my centerboard pivot seal was holding back the sea, the mast went up as it would on the trailer - everything can be done from the deck. Then the rest of the rigging up continued. This time the jib was raised and furled before raising anchor and motoring out. 

Motoring out of Ross River with mast raised and sails ready.  The port break wall  extends well past the bridge and provides protection from Northerly winds and waves common in summer. 

Once clear of the port's rockwall we unfurled the jib, cut the engine and began sailing. The wind was light from the North, so we were going slowly. One of the good things about sailing is you have to adapt to the wind conditions and this sometimes suggests the best way to go. So it was decided to motor-sail  upwind -destination Magnetic Island about 11 km offshore. The sea was flat calm so we got hull speed.

I checked my Garmin GPSmap60 handheld but it decided to play up with an inverted screen and no access to navigation pages. Maybe the rains in Papua New Guinea where i used it for work finally got into its micro-chip.

The midday sun up here is extreme. I knew that already, but you have to experience it to believe it, skin fry's quickly. With mainsail up there was nowhere for the boom awning to go, so just covered up with anything at hand, like a spare life jacket. Also we took shifts on the helm, the cabin with it's pop-top raised was good protection for the off-watch crew.

Pop top and fore hatch raised keeps the cabin cool. 

We  wore sun hats, long sleeves and sunblock but more could be done to ward off UV and IR radiation. Some lessons learnt for next time - like wear long pants, foot wear, better sun-hats etc. A large and very nice yacht sailing along called "It's a Beautiful Thing" sailed past with full main and Genoa heading for Cape Cleveland, she had  a broad bimini sunshade top over the cockpit and it looked very comfortable for the skipper. Hmmm, a bimini would be a nice addition..

Magnetic Island ahead!

Magnetic Islands hills loomed near and Picnic Bay's beach gradually rose into view. Rick had been in here before so knew of the reef and navigation beacon marking the safe entrance to the bay. The jib rolled away with a haul on the roller furling line and the fully battened mainsail was pulled down quietly after the halyard was released.  It was low tide and we saw some small power boats anchored at beach near the stinger net. We motored in there for a look but it looked too shallow and constricted for us, so we anchored off the end of the pier on the other side. The blue canvas boom awning was pulled from it's stowage compartment below the cockpit and was up in minutes. What a difference the shade makes.  The awning has 3 PVC pipes inside long pockets that go across it and 6 ropes tie it down to the wire lifeline that goes around the side of the boat.

Picnic Bay, Magnetic Island - the blue boom awning creates cool shade. 

While having lunch we had a look over at the wharf. It had closed to commercial Ferry traffic partially due cylone Yasi damage in Feb 2011 and partially because of a huge marina and wharf development further along the Island at Nelly Bay. People could walk out to a large safety fence about 3/4 the way out.  The wharf was great for anglers, and with little boat traffic now Picnic Bay has become a very nice quiet haven to visit.

We didn't have a dinghy aboard in order to keep things simpler on this test sail.  I vowed to get one and set foot on the Island one day.

Conditions looked OK for the first sailing off the anchor test. The awning was stowed, center-board lowered, mainsail raised and anchor pulled up. Once Ricky was back off the fore-deck, the jib was unfurled and backed to help the bow swing around and we tacked to windward to clear the reef marker post. It's a nice sensation to sail off from an anchor or mooring.

The wind quickly increased as we cleared land, it had picked up to 15 knots from the North East while we were anchored, and was on the port quarter when we raised the center-plate and set course for Ross River's entrance. Teria sailed with a bone in her teeth before 1 m seas, there was strong weather helm so i lowered the pivoting center-plate about 1 foot (30 cm). This had the immediate effect of balancing the helm significantly and the yacht tracked straighter - one more advantage of having a swing back keel, very pleased about that.

It took about 50 minutes to cross to Ross River.   we were doing about 11 kilometers/hour according to Ricky's GPS smart phone app.

Rick on the helm as we approached Ross River entrance

Ross River entrance ahead

Once again we were in the calm of Ross Rivers port breakwall, we slowed down a bit by furling the jib but the tailwind on the mainsail kept Teria sliding forwards at a respectable rate of knots. We passed the new ship basin which was home to Ross Haven Marina and the trawler fleet. They had to relocate here when the bridge began to block their access to the sea off. I don't know whether private yachts can anchor in there even for a short while so kept going

New Ross Haven Marine and Trawler harbor in Ross River

Rounded up again at the sandbar anchorage about 300 m to windward of the  grey concrete port bridge.  A fully battened mainsail is a great thing in these tight situations because it doesn't flap crazily in a strong wind like a normal mainsail would do. The fully battened main remains still when the wind is flowing on both sides of it, lowering the main can be a well paced task and not a quick grab at flapping sail cloth. Once the sails were off the mast was lowered again. It needed the two of us to do it, so though to better get a mast-crutch down aft happening so i could do the job myself next time.

We tested Teria's ability to drift downwind without a rig or a motor. It actually had some steerage way and could turn downwind then ran before the wind on hull windage alone at about 1 knot, there was also a 1-2 knot incoming tide behind us so we cover about 1 km of river silently at about walking speed with no sail or engine. Felt like something out of the engine-less era and time to see life on the river drift by. 

Finally we conceded to the modern world and increased the decibels for the final run to the pontoon. The trailer mods were not perfect as the boat was riding bow high due to the cross frames not being low enough up forward. Rick came up with a quick solution, in the boat trailer park, i lowered a bow roller 40 mm or so by unbolting it from the aft side of a beam and re-bolting it to the front side. 

The retrieval went without a hitch the repaired trailer rollers were good. Once on the hard i re-adjusted the keel rollers and side bunks. The Teria was now acceptably level on its trailer, the bow had dropped down by about 3" (75 mm) (Some serious re-fabrication to a trailer frame will be needed to drop it further.)

Once on the road home, i noticed how much the stability of the boat on trailer had increased by lowering the boat on the trailer by about 6" aft and 3" forward. This lowering also made it far easier to launch and retrieve Teria than on shakedown sail #1. The trailer is still backed in as far as possible with the mudguard tops nearly under, but now the hull can float much further up onto the trailer. This in turn allows the aft side bunks to hold the hull and stop the stern drifting off while the winch cable is being attached.

The process of mast raising and lowering in the river doesn't take much longer than doing it on land at the boat ramp. The bridge deters 99.9% of yachts so it is a very uncrowded un-rushed river and ramp with ample time and space.  Picnic Bay is a really laid back idyllic day anchorage and the Teria sailed well. All in all the 2nd shake down cruise was a success and the boat seemed about ready for regular passengers.