Fatty knees - Boxing day sail (rudder test)

Dec 26 th 2015, "boxing day" in Australia which is better known for the start of
the Sydney - Hobart yacht race. The super yachts headed south

Far to the north, a Fatty Knees 8' dinghy quietly took to the sea again. It was sail #30 , to test the restored rudder and try sailing JaiDee from Ross Creek in Townsville city centre for the first time.

It was the last day of a good weather window for Townsville  so everything was prepared by 4pm and the ute headed for the ramp with dinghy in tow. Ross Creek boat ramp (photos, map,etc - Fishing Townsville . It's also known as "Coast guard ramp")  (Forecast over next days for monsoonal rains associated with a cyclonic low in the NT, so last chance to sail for awhile)

Townsville city was initially built on the banks of Ross creek in the 1870s-1880s. The narrow inner harbour has a yacht club and marina, Passenger ferries, Car ferries and some marine maintenance facilities. Most moored vessels are in 24 - 120 foot range. The modern outer commercial shipping harbour is a large basin.  Oil tankers and bulk-carriers can berth here. There is also a cruise ship terminal.

I was lucky even though it was a moderate wind day (13kn ENE) the ramp car park was almost empty, only a hand-full of large boat trailers there and a couple of runabouts were being hauled out.

Parked in the  "rigging up lane" next to the south (inner) ramp. Set up the rig with mast down and sail furled before launching. This was my first time to use the new floating pontoon beside the ramp.   It  makes solo launching much easier, safer and faster - a great improvement done by the city council.

Rowed at first as the wind was coming directly down the  narrow channel. Not much space to tack back and forth with 100 ft? passenger ferry cats also using the inner channel. Rowed past rock fishermen on the long break wall and waved g'day.  It was about a 300-500m haul before the shipping basin which had plenty more room to sail in.

Rigged up on the water as there was nothing to shelter behind or tie on to (hanging off a nav bouy wouldn't be very good form!). The centreboard down first to reduce drift rate, rudder shipped next - bit difficult to get the lower pintle aligned and in as it was underwater and choppy (so note to do it earlier in a calm place), the mast-sail was easy to step and the downhaul quickly belayed on the anchor cleat. A bit hard to steer while all this going on (so note to set up tiller lashings earlier too)

Tacked upwind just clear of the ferry channel, but not too far into the ship basin (wind shadows in there from ship and docks etc). It was long outbound starboard tacks and short across port tacks. Set up the tiller lashing rope - clove hitch on tiller , the loose ends through the quarter ring eyes and tied with sliding knots. Fatty knees can sail hands free upwind with tiller lashed. The slide knots are slid loose to steer by hand again.

Once clear of port and channel a port close haul was held to gain sea room , away from the duckponds rock wall which has some wave rebound and resultant confused sea. This hardly affects a Fatty knees it bobs over "rogue waves" or ships wakes like a cork. Heeling about 20 degrees gives a much higher windward free-board and only occasional bow spray blew aboard. The bilge sponge soon cleared it.

Sailed out a few km on a NW course, West point of magnetic Island on the bow. The tiller lashed allowed for thermos coffee break and dinner , at about 2-3 knots.

Hand steering gets the dinghy faster at 3-4 knots.

Checked the navigation system - a samsung Galaxy ace smartphone with Polaris navigation app. Inside a clear plastic waterproof neck pouch. The phones GPS gave the postion as lat/long, speed and compass heading on one page, the map page gives a position on a google earth map. Jai Dee was half way to magnetic Island with the middle reef navigation pylon in sight when it was time to turn back.

Nav & phone

The rudder was going very well. It felt much more reassuringly solid than the old kick-up rudder. Just the thing for bay sailing.

Fixed blade wooden rudder

The summer solstice was just a few days earlier so sunset was late for here at 6.45pm. Long grey clouds to the NW cut off most of the sunset, they were the outer extent of the large monsoonal system covering northern Australia. Set up the navigation lights on dusk.

Grey skies advancing from the NW

The harbour entrance is easier to sail into than Ross River. The main thing to watch out for is fast ferry cats and stay clear of the channel until time to enter. No tugs or ships were operating. Ran downwind on the calm port waters about 20-30m out from the break wall. The port of Townsville is a good sea-break and shelter to windward. The lead lights were bright white like laser beams when further out , then turned to all round blue when close to them. Green and red navigation channel buoys and poles lights flashed.

Ross creek dusk

Sailed on to the outer ramp. Hove-to there to wait and let the ferry cat pass out, (they sounded 3 horn blasts as they reversed out of berth). Then continued into the inner harbour. Yacht club marina to port. To Starboard was the ferry cat, reef cat berths, then aquarium, museum with old ship berth alongside.

The "sugar shaker" with its green "headband" light comes into view ahead on the final leg of the sail-able creek. Starboard in the Flinders st night club area, unusual to see it from this perspective. The low bridge stops further sailing up creek. So tied up at an all-tidal jetty with concrete stairs, stowed the sailing rig and converted to row-boat again.  The artificial sounds of amplified music from Palmer st cut the air like a knife and it was good to get going again.

The tidal current was still coming in as was the breeze, so rowing back was the only option. Sailing would've gone nowhere fast. Having and engineless craft make you  aware of every nuance in the tide and wind.  I stuck to the sides of creek with the least current first it was near the yacht marina berths on the east (south bank) side, then crossed to follow the north bank (Flinders st side) back to the ramp.

Tied up to the articulated pontoon. It was not far to the car and trailer from there so a quick solo retrieval onto the trailer.

Ross creek boat ramps new floating pontoon