T23 Day 5. Sail to West Point. Cooking and navigation.

 Saturday 23/5/26

Another calm morning so got up later and continued "cooking class" with 5 sausages to fry and a 3 egg omellete. Coleman 20cm frypan on the Trangia25 spirit burner.

Boiled 2L fairly quickly on the Optimus 111T for a warm midday bucket bath.  It runs on kerosene and has a noisy "roarer" burner outputing about 3kw. To start, it is preheated with methylated spirits.  (The optimus was made in Sweden in the 1980's and was originally used on Antarctic expeditions from an Australian base)

The brass pressure fuel tank folds out for use. 

The "T" designation means it's triple-fuel capable. Kero, alcohol (meths) or white spirits. This one is jetted for kero. (jets are changed for other fuels, but i don't have those) Kero is the most energy dense fuel of the 3 types, so it packs more punch per tankful.

The Optimus 111T stove folded away in it's stowage compartment. 

Then tested the gas burner on the T25 to boil it's 0.9L kettle in 4 minutes flat (Spirit takes 12-13 minutes).  The spirit is better for slower heating/ ok for bacon and eggs etc. Cooking speed isn't all that important when sailing solo. The methylated spirits fuel is cheaper/safer than gas (It about A$6/ litre vs A$12 for a 460g isopropane gas bottle) 

Trangia 25 gas burner

The daily NE -E  seabreeze began about midday. So set full sail for West Point about 10nm from the Duckpond. Took the helm as it was a fresh 15-20 knot breeze. The first waypoint was the west marker of middle reef. 

Middle reef west marker

West point, Magnetic Island ahead.

It was a nice broad reach in the 20ft deep channel near the reef flat. Magnetic Islands hills offer a fair bit of shelter and alter the conditions. The wind swung astern, weakened to a nice breeze and the waves reduced to wavelets. The tiller-pilot could easily handle it as we glided along effortlessly, arriving at Westpoint beach around 3.30pm. 

The tide was high so anchored in close to the beach in 7ft of water for an easy sail change. Dropped the jib and put up the smaller #2 jib and furled it. Took a reef in the mainsail.

This was a bit of a navigation/piloting learning lesson. It takes about 2 hours or more to sail this leg one way. The note taken: Leave more time for this trip, at least 6-8 hours return. (It doesn't matter if the trip over is pure motoring on flat calm) Also the GPS chart and sounder allowed me to stay in the deeper channel away from reef flats. 

It was only a 30 minute stay before the return leg.  Motored off at 4pm at 5.5 knots (hullspeed) upwind skirting the reef flat but staying in the islands deep channel. Once clear of the windshadow, sailed on a beam reach for west marker of middle reef at a sedate 4 knots. Then hardened up on the wind for a close haul to the Duckpond by 5.30pm (motor assisted last mile)

Cooked up the last of the bacon, on bread with tomatoes, pickes and cheese. The ice finally all melted, 5 days of ice was pretty good. 

Another nice sunset at 5.44pm.

The LED lantern lights up a dark cockpit at night.