Teria maintenance this year

 There's always things to fix and do on a trailersailer between sails. This is the 2026 list.

Jib-halyard re-seized. The rope parted ways with the wire cable. So joined the two back together with strong seizing twine (ie a whipping) I did a simple type after looking at many more complicated ones on utube.

Bilge pump failure. Pulled it apart to clear an obstruction. It was a wingnut from my battery terminal.

Mini 12mm plywood floorboard. It was added to cover a 75mm gap above the bilge sump (where above wingnut fell through and into the bilgepump inlet).

Revived 12v battery. It was getting tired so added "Inox" battery reviver, ($10) it helps prevent plate sulphation.

The stern navigation light It's bulb blew (old incandescent festoon globe), so replaced it with a festoon LED bulb. This has much less powerdraw and it's far brighter, should last longer and help with the 12v batteries weakening AH capacity. 

Swing-arm for the navigation electronics. It's made from some treated fence paling wood and a stainless steel pivot bolt. The GPS and fishfinder mounts are screwed onto it. Very handy to be able to swing it back into the cabin while at anchor and swing it back when sailing. The pivot bolt has a springwasher, washer and wingnut to tighten it against the bottom of the electrical cabinet, so it's secure but still moves. It cost about $10 for the stainless stuff, far cheaper than any marine chandlers gear.

Ciggy plug moved. I had to remount the 12v ciggy plug socket to the inner side wall of the cockpit, on a ply base plate.

Battery holder base. Screwed 12mm square (garden stake) wood pieces around the base of the 12v battery. (It sits on a 12mm ply base). These stop any side ways movement. (It was clamped down but even then it moved a bit in rough seas)

Chart storage shelf. There was an unused space inside the cockpit coaming. So made a shelf for two rolled up charts to sit, dry and up out of the way. It's made from thin wood slats siliconed to the fiberglass, and an ultralight shelf on these, made from 10mm "foilboard" insulation foam. (leftovers from the cooler shed project). It's not that strong, so no 100kg oafs are allowed to fall on it.

Pen and dividers stowage block. I was getting tired of loosing my pen, pencil and chart dividers, so made a block out of foam with holes to put these long easily lost instruments. It's siliconed to the forward chart shelf slat and the cockpit bulkhead.

Lamp hook #2 (reading light). Screwed a 2nd hook to the mast arch wood. Close to my bunk, so my Coleman LED lantern can be used as a reading light. (The first hook on the otherside is for the lanterns "galley light" position)

Lifejackets. All legal,  AS4758. Bought a 2026  100N foam lifejacket ($50, BCF). It's a bit bulky to wear inside cabin, so its the extra crews jacket, stored under forepeak bunk boards. My 50N kayak jacket and 150N inflatable are easier to wear.

Trailer maintenance. 

1) Grease gun new cartridge, then pumped up the bearing buddies for the wheel bearings. 

2) Swapped the aft hull "bunks" out for the original carpet ones. (my replacements were not as kind to the hulls gel coat)

3) Replaced #2 front keel roller and spindle (axle). The new one is red "cotton plastic", a bit softer than the old hard plastic, hope it lasts as long.  The roller is an 8" (20cm) "dogbone" type with 16mm galvanised spindle.

4) New trailer winch. Bought but not fitted. It's an "Atlantic" 1500kg 3speed with dyneema cable. It's for impending old age. (Still got the original classic 5:1 single ratio 750kg with wire cable on trailer)

Yachts are migrating south again

 The "build-up" season is underway, its getting warm-hot and humid.  Thunderstorms are out west and down south but haven't reached Townsville yet (we did get 30-70mm of rain from the tailend of a system), they tend to move eastwards towards the coast when forming.

On "Vessel finder" AIS app, there is a mass migration of yachts heading south again. They are departing North Queensland waters and sailing fast with moderate beam to quartering winds down to at least SE Queensland latitudes to escape the coming cyclone season (and for boat insurance). It's a good week to sail south. Normally moderate to strong dryseason SE trades make any southern progress difficult for keel yachts and large multihulls for at least 6 months per year. (Never a problem for trailer sailers on the highways)

(Purple) yachts movement Qld coast, Oct 2026 (credit "Vessell Finder")

Yachts are also sailing south from South Pacific Islands to NZ, Oct 2026.

It's a "super El Nino" year. So far sea temperatures have stayed cooler than normal in the coral sea, which made our weather better in Townsville. It's rained a bit more than usual (not flooding) on the coast south of Cairns, so nice and green up there.

(It's been more extreme elsewhere and climate forecasts for the next few months in Australia are not promising, could be some extreme weather events like heatwaves, bushfires, droughts ahead)

 

Day 4. Lucinda and roadtrip to Townsville

 Fri 31/7/26

On the downwind sail back to Lucinda, a humpback whale suddenly surfaced for air about 150m ahead of Teria with its huge tail flukes lifting out as it dived. Wow! The unexpected event only lasted a few seconds, and it remained submerged. 

Later on (another?) whales' spout mist was fleetingly spotted about 200m astern. 

I reached the Lucinda sugar jetty about 0900, and the wind shifted to the south off the land, so motor-mainsailed into it. The high tide of 2.49m was at 0930, so could cut across the sand bars/shoals following a big power cats path. The minimum depth was around 10 ft (3m).

Followed the shipping lead ("leed") line/lights, first on my GPS chartplotter. Then ahead you see a modern ?laser lead light system about 1/3 the way out on the jetty, visible in the day. It gives a white flash when ok, it turns red when you drift to port and green when you drift to starboard of the lead line (course). It's an update from my old 1980's edition, "Cruising the coral coast" maine guide book and my 1980's paper charts onboard.

The two big red can bouys mark the channel close in by the old mollases wharves. Pass between the wharves and the red bouys. (It's a bit confusing for smallcraft entering from the south, as the channel markers are setup for old big ships to enter from the other direction, via the deeper Hinchinbrook channel.)

The Enterprise channel entrance to Dungeness harbor was harder to find, (no more "local" marker bouys) just one big yellow (danger?) one, the sandbars here must shift around allot. I had 6 to 12 foot depths going over them at high tide. My kickup centerboard is always lowered to 4ft draft in shoal draft waters, as a final warning/ grounding alert system but it never scraped the bottom.

Motored up estuary and anchored in a small south branch creek among mangroves. Had some food, rest and washed the decks down with remaining fresh water (30 kgs lighter)

The haul out at the ramp went ok. There were allot of tinnies also hauling out, everyone was good.

A quick hose down, then derigged Teria up the back of the huge car-trailer park. 

Friday afternoon road trip

It's about 130 kilometers back to Townsville. 

Waited for a sugar cane train at Halifax about 10km from the ramp, then crossed the Herbert river bridge and took the "Northern road" back to the Bruce Higway, about 10 km north of Ingham. Not the best way to go in retrospect. It's busy traffic and has a very uneven/lumpy pothole repaired surface. Crossed the Herbert river again on a higway bridge. It felt like a longtime to reach Ingham even at 90 km/hr.

(The "middle road" is the recomended road, it stays south of the Herbert river (no bridges) quiet backroads (past the hotel in the cane fields) and extits to the Bruce Highway about 500m north of Ingham township urban area)

Stopped for a trailer bearings heat/ tiedowns/couplings etc check 2 km south of Ingham and another 2km north of Rollingstone. Usual heavy Friday arvo traffic encountered after Deeragun (Townsville Northern suburbs) but got home ok. 

My street is a narrow one, and a car was parked diagonally opposite to restrict my final driveway turn-in access from the south. So drove past and u-turned at a roundabout to enter our street from the other direction (north end) which had no parked cars blocking my boat trailers' turning radius.