Nice little sail sunday..

[John B]

We have this plan to jump on a boat every second sunday through winter in lieu of winter racing. All the boat changing that went on last year/ early this means we lost our winter race boat, Riada is kept miles away from the fleet and Contour has bags for sails. So the idea is to get a crew aboard and go out for a hack around the harbour, set a few sails and and sort out or learn systems.
Only 2 of us this weekend though but we did work out the pole and found a bad set up on the main reefing which we re set, you can see it in the photo ( I don't know how I missed seeing that!)

Anyway we ended up with a nice 18 or 20knots at times with #3, main and full mizzen at the start. She wasn't balanced though so we reefed the mizzen and she transformed.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/p80230f6fd7ee2f93c3121985842c4a07/e9700d17.jpg
Found Cory in Drunks bay where he'd spent the night. They took their Alan Smith boat to the Pacific islands last year.Cory is an American boat builder living here and a few of you will know him I'm sure.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/pa895f9e2cdc0200fa7829ddacbb25fbe/e9700d16.jpg

We did have a great sail punching out through the Motuhuie channel wind against tide and then back to our berth at Pine harbour. Still freaks me a little as I'm used to full tidal access to my boat/berth.
This marina has a few hundred metres of channel which at low tide is literally mud either side and doesn't have much room for error as this boat discovered sunday.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/p0902a16362702f536b0e52f007d63c6b/e9700d12.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/p416a2e6bcc69753f87f40b63149d03f2/e9700d11.jpg

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/p4b921ea54e34e76215c63355cb3203f9/e9700cce.jpg

[John B]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid225/pdaa98192b7b6e7ef6a4e0e71d9432d52/e9700cc6.jpg

[capt jake]

Nice short story with pics. I enjoyed the ridealong. Thanks. :)

[The Bigfella]

Yeah - good one thanks John. I hope the guy on the cruiser took advantage of his stopover and scrubbed the bottom.

[John B]

Heh, not sure. that was about 2.30 for a 4.00 low so he had to wait to 5.45-6pm I'm a thinking.

[JimD]

As usual, I find myself envious.

[John B]

Dya like our mud Jim ?;)

We draw close to 7ft , 2.1 metres, so you can see how its dredged. I tell you its not wide when a ferry or a big launch comes out at you and we can't afford to deviate from the centre much. We've been out where we did actually read 2.1 at one spot but that was on a light day and rising tide. Its easy to take your eye off it for a few seconds and find yourself in a less than ideal spot.
The most nerve wracking was coming in at night, which surprised me. From the side as we approached it looked fine, well lit, easy. When we did line up though, all the background lights created glare and masked the leading and the fairway lights. Not too much fun.Kids got a buzz.

be alert, we need more lerts.

[John B]

Where's the clew police anyway, shouldn't Gareth be back by now, and be pointing( ar har har unintentional pun) out my reef issue.