The Red Baron biplane was a good alarm clock, they take off at the Western breakwall and it's amazing how they can land in a short space.
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| At anchor |
Once the sun was well up and the wind was right, Teria was sailed off the anchor and out into a 15-20 knot Easterly on Cleveland Bay. Barely a cloud in the sky and thousands of scintilla shinning ahead. The new Bimini top worked as hoped and the cockpit is now a cool shady place to be.
The wind strengthened further offshore and the boat felt over-pressed, the lee rail was a few inches above water level,, it's a hard thing to push an investigators lee decks underwater. There's just enough space to get out from under the bimini over the hatch to reach the mast and reduce sail with a single reef in the main. There was allot of force and the small reefing line pully on the boom let go at one end, a 30 year old pop-rivet had finally died, so simply wrapped the reefing line around the boom at the gooseneck to take the load and sailed on about 4-5 knots.
Self steering to windward was good, a long starboard tack with a lashed helm gave us allowed for about about 10 nautical miles hands free sail to windward of Magnetic Island. Slowly clawed upwind of the Platypus shipping channel. Hardly any other craft out there except the regular ferries and a port survey vessell. Set the mackerel lure but didn't get any strikes.
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| Helm lashed, self steer to windward |
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| Trolling |
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| Coffee break |
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| Orchid rocks point |
Tacked to port and close hauled past a lone shipping navigation beacon painted bright yellow and black, not on my old chart but the harzard probably deep below.
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| Chart of Cleveland Bay |
A few hours and 8-10 nm later open waters and stronger wind came up, still a few miles to leeward of the Cape and it's light house. Wasn't going to make it there today so held course for the lee side of the Capes mountain. Bullets of wind began to hit a few miles off, so dropped the number one jib and raised to smaller number 2 jib for the first time. Discovered that the shackles that fitted the number 1 jib cringles were too small for the heavier cloth and thicker cringled No2 jib, not the best spot to remedy that with a few trips aft to the spare bits box to find larger shackles. The bimini was till up and my bulky conventional life jacket was just a tad too big to allow easy movement under the bimini on a 20-30 degree heeled deck.
With the reduced sail Teria could still claw to windward for the remaining few miles and close on the coastline of Cape Cleveland. The bimini was dropped as it's windage was getting too much.
Sailed over shoal waters extending well off shore, the centerboard kicked up and i spun the boat around and sailed clear before becoming stuck there in that remote place. The tide was on the rise which was good. The waves were small in the lee but the wind channeled through the hills and seemed to increase as bullets of wind came hurtling down almost knocking Teria way over at times. So furled the jib and dropped the mainsail a lay a hull for a rest, the boat still heeled about 10-20 degrees under bare poles in the strong conditions. Hauled the kayak out onto the foredeck and lashed it down for the downwind leg. Plenty of excitement for an old fella for one day. A large Army Chinook helicopter flew by at low altitude on their way out to the lighthouse area on the tip of the exposed Cape.
It was time to run for it, and head for port. Tried Jib only at first which was comfortable in the 30 kn gusts near land.
As Teria got further away from the hills influence the wind setled down again so rounded up and raised the reefed mainsail for the 4-5 knot broad reach 8 nm back to Ross River. Here's a U-tube video Sailing downwind
The bimini went back up under these more comfortable conditions, but was dropped again approaching the river. The quick stowing abiilty of the bimini is a must, usually the boom needs to be let way out to allow the biminis bow to rise up and over on dropping it..other way is to release the boom vang and lift the boom during the bimini drop.
The Sun was setting on arrival and the danger of the entrance breakwall was cleared before it got too dark. I did overshoot the de-rigging anchorage and grounded on a mud bank but turned ok and got away to anchor and phone call in with the Volunteer Coast guard to let them know the trip went well and sign off the trip sheet. (The radio base closes about 5 pm on Mondays, they hand over the radio listening watch to port authorities at night) It was a moonless time of night so slowly motored up river with spot light. Tried my first night haul out and it went ok under big floodlights at the ramp.
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