NEW SAIL

I have my new sail...WOO HOO!!!

It's currently on the lounge room floor...i must find a moment to take it down to the boat, install the new reefing system and get it up!!

New mainsail for Maggie

The time has come to replace the existing mainsail with something a bit less blown-out, grubby and mould riddled...

I've been running the idea past some sailing buddies and gathering general advice prior to talking to the sail maker - who will be Peter Green Sails. While I'm getting a new sail I thought it also a good time to update the reefing from roller reefing to slab reefing - linky thing for wiki explanation of different reefing systems - which will help maintain a better sail shape once reefed and with all the lines led back to the cockpit, no reason to go forward to reef the main.

The general consensus has been to go for a loose footed main - so I will take that idea to the sail maker.

Other things which need considering are:

1. Reef Points: I'll probably go with 2. But has been pointed out to me - if I want to race to Cat5, I must be able to reef to 25% reduction in luff (which is the bit that runs up the mast) length.
2. Material - I'll stick with dacron, which is the standard stuff.
3. Batten - do I just go leach battens or full battens.

The other point to consider is am I going to remove the main after each use or leave it on the boat? If I am going to leave it on, do I get a sail cover also and do I install lazy jacks??

I think I will probably remove it and keep it below.

Finally, I think is the reefing system. I am probably sold on single line reefing with the lines running to the cabin top.

I'll keep the updates coming...

First item from the "To Do List" done

Nothing major, finally got a horse shoe life ring, stuck some letters on it, found a suitable mount and below is the said item on Maggie

The Marley Point Reality - Thanks to the GPS Track

So I thought in the light of day and after a little rest and reflection, I would seriously try and work out what happened during the MPONR as recorded by the GPS. On first glance there were a few interesting things, but all in all it wasn't too different to what I remembered. If I did a bit more analysis of the log I could work out a few more boring details, but I figured this would suffice...

Just a quick after thought, here is Mr Google Earth showing us where I am talking about...

And yes the map gets bigger if you click on it... 

As can be seen our trip across Lake Wellington was pretty straight forward once the wind settled down. The squiggly lines at the start probably indicated we were tacking into an easterly breeze. Once we held a constant course the wind was generally behind us. We altered course and headed into McLennan Strait at 1:40am.

The first bit of interest was entering the Strait. If you remember from my previous entry, we hit both sides of the entry - that can be seen below. We would have been better off just altering course slightly on entry, I can only think there was a wind shift as we entered, or possibly the current messing about with the apparent wind making us think there was a wind shift - oh well, what do you expect it was 2am!

On the upside I now have the entry co-ordinates for both sides of McLennan Strait!!

If you re-call from my previous post I said "We were heading SE and the wind finally gained some strength - about 8-10 kts, trouble was it was also from the SE!! (It was probably only 5kts and just felt like more as we were excited to get some wind…?) We ended up putting in about 12 to 14 tacks in quick succession to gain some headway, as with each tack we went from heading from one bank to the other,  it was a pretty intense 20 minutes or so." Well as it turns out, we were actually heading north, with a northerly wind...???...and we did 8 tacks in 14 minutes - between 3:54am and 4:08am - once again I'm going with the 'it was the 4am' defense!! 

Then was the bumping into the edge episode - as the plot shows we did a bit of a loop turn around getting off. That all happened at 4:30am. And also the small error in map alignment can be seen - just remember not to fully trust your GPS!!

Now for the exciting part. After passing Holland's Landing at 6:54am and exiting the Straits, our speed ranged from 3.5 to 5 knots (with the exception of a couple of lulls - down to 2.5kts) from 7:09am to 9:52am.

Then just as we were approaching Sperm Whale Head, 9:52am, the wind dropped out...we drifted to the SE, covering 100m or so in the next hour. The wind then picked up again and we covered 0.5 nautical miles in about 10 minutes...then once again no wind and we're drifting to the east...11:15am, motor on...DNF!!!

Again the most frustrating thing was we were in sight of the finish for almost 2 hours before we pulled the pin!!

And just to add a bit of colour, here's a couple of random shots of the Gippsland Lakes and one of a previous MPONR - thanks to Google Earth for the photos...

So until next time...happy sailing!!

My New Toy

My lovely and long suffering wife got me a hand held chart plotter style GPS for my birthday back in October, YEAH!

Unfortunately, since then I have only managed to get on the water twice, however the novelty value of the GPS is great.

My aim is to take it out with me each trip and track the course travelled which then can be downloaded to Google Earth - which I have shown in various posts.

The unit can also be set up to communicate with the autohelm to steer a course to various waypoints. This is advantageous over the autohelm alone, as the autohelm will only steer to a bearing, and therefore tends to allow the yacht to track a bit with the current, etc. Whereas, when I get this system sorted, the GPS should correct the course for current.

Anyway that's a job for another day - I'll add it to the list!