First boating weekend of the season...

[basm]

Monday's photos:

[basm]

Under sail on heading out under Rangitoto Island


Motoring home back to Auckland

[John B]

Hahaha, good sized ketch.... The master of understatement. We did notice Viking coming in when we were waiting for our kid.

[basm]

Under sail:

[John B]

She loved that that reach !

Bas' ride ...


Viking , 1893 Charles Bailey jnr.. she's been a ketch for a few decades now.


Before that she might have been a schooner for a while? Originally a cutter rig which became a cruising yawl

[Thad]

Thanks again John!

[John B]

This weekend just gone was one out the box although so hot , it was hard to get a breath at times. Nothing like the Aussie temperatures but there's something about Aucklands humidity that needs a factor of 20% or something added to the listed temp to get a real feel for what its like.
There was some muttering about selling Riada and getting a launch though.. no wind to speak of when we were travelling out and back.
Swimming at the Noises in 23.8C was like getting into a warm bath for us, it didn't refresh at all.
Against all normal procedure we actually spent a night in a popular anchorage as we came back a bit to meet up with the Contours. Funny as, 100 boats in the bay protected from the SW( 10 knots maybe) and whole bundle more which came over later in the evening. Of course what happens.... a Northerly came in about 4 am. being survival conditions and all, blowing oooo 7 gusting 8, the whole bays full of boats were gone by 6 am bar about 7 of us!

' Discovered ' a nice little bay yesterday...




We went off for a quick tiki tour of the Gardiner gap in the stripper. Thats the old island Motutapu to the left ,nice sandstone and earth...... and the new island,( arrived C 1300AD or so) the ex volcano Rangitoto to the right. Pretty savage to land a dinghy on with all that black lava twisted rock around its foreshore.



and the Contour boys went fishin amongst the kahawai workup. Fat little good condition fush they were too.


They came in with 6 in about 10 minutes and their dad told em to get 3 more for us. Back in 5 they said, which they were.

Excellent weekend.

[John B]

As soccer season draws near and we descend into soccer trials, soccer practise, soccer games, soccer tournaments etc, all times 2 kids, we are keen on grabbing the last of our cruising.
So we left on friday night with a vague plan of circumnavigating Waiheke island, and maybe seeing Graeme in his new Piedy. We had really nice reach down to Oneroa and a glorious beat into the bay where we decided to stop because it was dusk and we didn't really care. Normally we'd avoid it like the plague, along with various other hot spots the crowds like to go to. It wasn't too bad.. not too many boats there relatively and we stopped right out anyway.
As soon as we'd got anchored the texts and phone calls started telling us about the disaster in Japan.
As usual , other media were far superior over that of standard marine bulletins via VHF . The VHF forecast and channel 16 referred listeners to a website for updates ! The radio stations were just blanked out on reporting what was happening in Japan and left us in the dark comparitively with brief comments once or twice in an hour.
I'd been considering cancelling my laptop aircard recently ,but I guess it paid for itself in peace of mind that night.

Anyway, reports varied from a 1 metre high wave down and not until 6.32 am at North cape , a couple of hundred miles north, so we stayed . The 4.30 or so report from civil defence confirmed that it was unlikely to be a threat but at 6.30 we upped anchor and trundled out so we faced the right way and had some deep water under us. Caught one snapper.
No sign of a tsunami.. some odd ripples at one stage.. that was it.



Dawn dawns




tsunami sunrise

[John B]

I'm going sailing tomorrow

Friday: Easterly 30 knots gusting 40 knots, but 25 knots gusting 35 knots south of Whangaparaoa Peninsula. Becoming northeast 30 knots gusting 40 knots everywhere in the morning. Sea rough. Poor visibility in periods of rain.

but that's fine because the direction we're going is due east. About 32 miles or so. South of Whangaparoa as it happens.

Thats good , right.?

[Larks]

Thats good , right.?

Better than sitting at home mowing the lawn!

[John B]

It looks like they're going to shorten the course. Funny comment from one of the guys ( its a 3 handed gulf rally. 3 legs with a stop each night)
The comment... " We're gettin the old band back together" LOL.


anyway, off to stand under a cold shower whilst ripping up $100 notes, as they say.

[John B]

The race was cancelled but we had a boat full of food , beer and 3 guys sitting on the dock so we went anyway... motored up to a local bay and went for very nice wet sail the next day. Shame about the race though.

[Hwyl]

The jib seems to set well, rolled like that. It's a black art getting them to do that.

[John B]

What 'they' seem to do now Gareth, is run an open ended pocket about 2/3 or 3/4 the hoist just behind the luff. Then they drop a length of fat cheap rope in it. The rope does the job that all that foam luff gimmick used to do, and does it pretty well.
anyway, thats what is on that sail.

[John B]

A nice sail in 5 going 15 and then about 18 today, enough to click 8.5 down to 7.5 most of the way. We're at one of those popular anchorages but out of popular time ... 10 or 12 boats in North Cove aka Chamberlains bay.

ferry noice.

[snow(Alan H)]

A little early for the party.......... or are you checking on the hedge fund?
Might c u Friday for a rumbo

[John B]

Well, that was a very good few days away and a fitting way to end our sailing for the year. Getting away early allowed us to visit a few spots that can get busy through the season without being crowded .
Chamberlains or North cove can often as not have 100 boats in it and we had 10 or so. Rotoroa island next door was our goal as it has been in private ownership and closed to the public for 40 or 60 years ..... we were keen to get ashore and have a wee walk.
Since the ownership change was notified a year or so ago, the island remained closed for extensive work to its structure and ecology... a lot clearing of imported trees and replanting in native, plus tracks and facilities. There was no other visitors there except us. Even at its early growtrh stage the place was a delight to see and started the theme of the early part of our short cruise, stopping in bays we'd never been to before. That still impresses me, being able to go to a spot we've not been to despite nearly 30 years cruising around this gulf and bit of coast.

leaving the smoke. flying the Ed Harrow and Mr Lemonhands flags , as it were.



we managed an hour or so with the Mizzen staysail, but tweaked it down pronto with some gusts a bit further down the straight. Pretty typical sailing weather here.. nil to 12 to 20 to 15, all in a few hours.



some passionate interaction with the environment ..

[John B]

Its about 20 miles to North Cove, it made a nice afternoon sail and the breeze dropped off on cue as we anchored.
I sat aboard as a visit was paid to the 'wildlife' onshore .

donkeys.



from Rotoroa the next morning , looking back at the northern coast of Ponui island , thats North cove with the two masts in it. We usually prefer to slide in to the sandy beach. Its shallow there and less people choose to anchor off it.





and then looking North over Rotoroa.

[John B]

From Rotoroa we made a lunch stop at a favourite rocky bay and pool. It was a bit cool and late in the day( and the season) for swimming but nice to visit anyway





big tides at the time

We were tempted to stop the night there and it would have been fine , however we ended up deciding to move around the corner and came across our mates out. They hadn't expected to be out but the weather had lured them.


That was a very nice and comfortable night and the next day was just spectacular , but totally windless.

[John B]

and that meant a 3 hr motor up to Kawau island , about 22 or so miles north.
Beautiful clear day, fish working everywhere ( but no bites) and a stop at 2 different bays for the kids to go for a swim and moi for a paddle.
Then to Mansion house bay to meet the ferry and our three guests to stay aboard for a couple of days.
Not a bad spot for an afternoon/ evening stop.
Thats an early Townson Keeler in front of us.




That was thurs evening and typically you could expect boats to arrive there well into the small hours on the holiday night.
We got the hell out of dodge and scored a bay to ourselves 1/2 mile up the harbour.

[John B]

You can see I'm on a mission here, determined to finish this thread .
Friday was a cool day in many ways, overcast and fresh. So fresh that most boats heading to Kawau as their easter destination turned around and went elsewhere. However it was cool as a birthday because I was fed and watered to my hearts content and we had a very nice evening and bbq at SteveH's bach in North Cove Kawau. We even caught fish right in the Bon Accord harbour.Great night.
one of the boats arriving at Steves.

a very interesting unit, there's a canoe body under there and when I asked about construction and her shallow draft / beaching aspects , Brian told me that she was built with a 5 inch thick bottom and had a 3 inch thick hull elsewhere. Lug schooner rigs, she has a massive volume interior and trucks around at 6 knots or so... a boat fit for the purpose she was designed to fulfill.

Sat morning arrived and after a late start we trundled ashore for BBQ brunch at the Pardeys to discuss the Mahurangi cruising club race around the islands.
Only 9 boats due to the weather and a notice oversight.. never mind , that made it all the more fun.

[John B]

Unfortunately I didn't get photos of all the boats. The stripper on our windlass ruptured and although I could have easily hauled everything up by hand , some stubborn streak manifested and I insisted on pulling it down right there and then so as to see the issue. It wasn't complex.. a very simple thing where LEWMAR decided a few years ago to make a substandard low quality piece of rubbish out of plastic and insert it in a place where it would get beaten to death fairly easily and kark it within a short number of years so as to presumably , sell more units. A very simple issue.

anyway.. some of the boats .It was a Mark Foy or staggered start race with start times for a 12 mile course spread 45 minutes from 1.30 through to 2.15

Gypsy, a Logan from around 1938 or so.. 36 or so ft long ?. She's an interesting boat because she was launched with a gaff rig when all her contemporaries were bermudan rigged. As you see in the intervening years she's had her bowsprit removed, a doghouse added for more accomodation and she has an ali stick. I don't recall what her start time was but she was beautifully sailed ,was first home and won the race .



Stevey H on the way out in Ngatira ( 1904ish Bailey) with a big crew and lots of grins.



and Profile , the Townson 8.8 picking up his crew, er my crew, um his crew for the day.

[John B]

Naturally, I had some other preparations to make. Breaking from tradition and perhaps reflecting the fact that were were 2 handed ourselves I thought a stern chaser was in order. Nice and handy for a little surprise for the start boat.

[John B]

Alia, with Jaques and Kim doing sterling duty as start and finish boat, soon to be blessed with a heart stopper from Riada.



ah yes, nothing wrong with Jaques' health.

You'll notice a couple of the nearest fleet in the distance as we along with Achernar were scratch boats at the 2.15 start. We still had 5 minutes or so to wait at that stage.

wellll... the reaching legs were a bit gaspy for us and Achernar ( I'll check the spelling soon) had legs on us and slid away( o for the mizzen staysail) but I was very pleased at the way we hung on to windward. Ketches typically ain't that quick on the wind but at least we sailed some good high angles.


lovely sailing in 8 or 10 knots, the sun had come out in the afternoon... just lovely.


we managed to catch 4 or 5 boats... here's Spray a late 1940's Logan and Taliesin


and blew ourselves out tactically for a period with Profile forcing a tack on us...



just footing along beautifully and punching well above her weight as all Townsons do.

[Chip-skiff]

Marvelous pickies, as usual. I can almost smell the sea air.

You've gotten great service from the stripper. What do think of the center bench, as compared to the usual setup?

[John B]

It actually works really well Chips, everyone is automatically seated in the right place with maybe a shuffle fore and aft required for trim. A bit of a surprise really.
Unfortunately all maintenance and projects got canned last year so it missed out on the varnishing etc it was due for. I'll bring it home or into work now and dry it out for a clean up.

[John B]

backtrack to friday, Steve just sent me a pic.. it'd been fairly blowy and wet so we had the 'ketch reef' in .

[Thad]

Many thanks, John! and nice to get a picture (and a good one too) of your own boat!

[John B]

I took about 3 'good' ones of Ngatira at the same time Thad.
Only, they didn't turn out so good. I think I might be developing some sort of twitch .

Ngatira got in a couple of hundred metres ahead of us.....



The sky in these shots is telling us something



and after a short interval, the sun goes down a bit quick this time of the year.. we headed ashore to enjoy the Pardeys hospitality.
They really do go to quite some trouble to make us all welcome and its a real pleasure to catch up with all the Mahurangi CC and North Cove people.



as was promised by the clouds and the weather forecast, the next day ( sunday) was overcast with patches of rain, the forecast for monday was heavy rain and 30 knots.. so we left sunday for a nice broad reach all the way home in about 15 to 18 knots....

and that...


was that.

[John B]

But wait, there's more.

surprisingly we made it out for another night. The weather was 50 knots on sat and the Fiji ocean race start was postponed. When it dawned sunday clear and sunny we decided to watch that and then head for Drunks bay for the night.
The old orma 60 Tri Geant , now Team Vodafone is the odds on favourite


but they mauled the start and returned leaving the brand new TNZ 70 foot RTW boat to lead the fleet out.

Small fleet of about 18 boats



Talent , a nice Townson for Graeme.

[John B]

And a nice afternoon and evening up at Drunks/ Islington.

Iorangi was just about to leave but we had them hop over for a cup of coffee.




Wairiki slotting in past two of the boats we cruise with..





Nice night and good to get out, even if it was just motorboating.

[John B]

2011 is looking up as I have a crew job on Riada's young sister called.. RiadaII .
She's a 1980 revision of our 1975 Riada. Originally built in a way that she looked very similar apart from the obvious ketch/ sloop rigs ,but with some racing rating influenced bumps in the run aft and some reasonably subtle alterations particularly in the bow sections. 10 or 15 years ago she had a major makeover with a pilothouse hard dodger added and the rig changed from masthead inline double spreader to fractional swept spreaders and a boom furler.( edit .. she was inline fractional rig, not masthead,changed to swept spreader fractional, )
Nice boat , fast, and great cruiser with the shelter we don't have.
We first met them on our 08 cruise in Whangaroa harbour in Northland and have caught up periodically since..

[snow(Alan H)]

Will be good to see you sitting on the rail again...........

[John B]

interweb prollems.. couldn't post me pics.




similar but different..

[John B]

Will be good to see you sitting on the rail again...........

I dunno about that , I quite fancy the look of that dodger.

She's just been repowered. re propped and log and shaft done, rig checked, new mainsail ,storm jib and trysail.
Ready for anything!

[Duncan Gibbs]

Great stuff JB! Gotta do the pilgrimage one of these days... Direct flights from GC to AKL y'know!

[Phil Y]

nice

[Larks]

2011 is looking up as I have a crew job on Riada's young sister called.. RiadaII

what do you define as a "crew job" over there? Is that like a paid job helping to "polish the hull" so that you can continue to pay the upkeep on your fleet or the more obvious "helping to polish off the cellar??

[Hwyl]

It's a much bigger rig.

Are you planning on adding to the fleet?

[John B]

what do you define as a "crew job" over there? Is that like a paid job helping to "polish the hull" so that you can continue to pay the upkeep on your fleet or the more obvious "helping to polish off the cellar??

Well ,I'm not going to polish a hull, I've got enough maintenance of my own to do. I've made myself useful troubleshooting a few minor things but i think I'll get some steering and a bit of trimming . A wheel though!

No I'm not adding to any fleet Gareth.. if you'd heard me on a rant a month or so ago you would have heard about ' sellin everything'. Mostly car driven at that time with a fried waterpump on my car , a big service bill on my wife's and two I couldn't sell. ( one company car and one was our old family 7 seater more recently used as the boat/ marina truck)
Easily solved. I traded the 2 on another car for Kirsty, and paid the money.

[John B]

One day to go. oo yeah.

Apart from one little home crisis down. burgled today... bad enough but not too bad.

Were' off up the coast tomorrow, there's a big low lurking off the tip of Northland and we'll have to wait for that to get past far enough to clear on outa here and give us the slingshot off. Its the 20's in a couple or three days!.

[John B]

We bolted up the coast on the 2nd july with a breeze that grew and ended up having us doing exactly what we didn't want to do and that was sailing 10/ 10ths flat out in the middle of the night with a boat loaded for a 3 month cruise.
On board was the owner and his partner , and us 3 delivery helpers for the leg to Tonga. The fact that we ended up doing 10 knots in the black and what had developed into a wind warning had its benefits though because it caused us to make a couple of small modifications . One modification being to the boat ( a teak cleat the length of the cockpit... something for a toe to bevel into ) and one to our collective attitudes ie , we're in for the longhaul, not a broach off Tutukaka.
We stopped at Mimiwhangata at about 1 am and next day fiddled around making sure of our storm gear and trying out another sail from deep within the sail locker. It was going a wind advisory by then so what better time to get the storm jib out and try a really deep reef for the sail around into Customs at Opua.
Joy o joy , who woulda thunk it. ... 8 square metres of jib and a main up to the spreaders only and we went just as fast, flat, comfy, pass the biscuits will ya Kev me old mate.
Johnny gets a shot at the big round thing.


did you know ( for all those tiller guys out there) that wheels are different to steering on proper boats, which have a stick attached directly to the rudder.

We spent a day watching the weather and topping up provisions etc and finally cleared on the 5th, leaving in a gale warning for later that night on the basis of making some North and sailing out of the systems cartwheeling up through the Tasman and making life miserable in NZ.

Storm jib and little main.. lovely.

[John B]

The sailing was pretty damn exciting as we moved offshore. People always talk about wind strengths as a gauge to weather, I do it myself.. but the reality is its sea state that counts.
We had a SE swell with an overnight NE overlay , plus a SW wave from the last 12 hours with the new and current wave from the NW on top. Basically there was some sort of water coming from everywhere. It was mixed up and messy and a not nice motion depite us sailing an angle from a reach through broad reach ,to make speed and go for the driest ride with least slamming.
This boat is fast cruiser.. 46 ft and firmer aft than Riada, she'd squirt away and maintain speeds from lows of 8 and through to a medium of high 9's and 10's. The log would read 8, 9, 9, 10, 10 ,10 ,10, 11, 11 11, 12 8 8 9 etc. grrreat sailing. I hit 13's a few times and that was it given the length of wave and general conditions.. shame we never really got a nice long ocean swell with those breezes.

Great old mate Tony on the helm.

[John B]

The forecast was NW going SW and we wanted to go NNE. Sailing that angle was a mission though so we continued off at more NE on the basis of turning left when the SW came in. Over a couple of days that led us to a point 70 miles off the Kermadecs and aiming so we'd only just clear em should we continue.. dang SW hadn't come in and we'd gone through the 180 degrees longtitude. The seas were building , the barometer dropping a bit quick and after some discussion we decided that we'd turn her around and heave to... have a little rest and see how she handled while it was still early in the day. I certainly did not fancy continuing on to shoaling water and coming any closer than where we were to a place we subsequently heard was busy having an earthquake and producing a tsunami of some degree.
This point then became the fabled 'JB 70' and was used for the duration of the trip whenever it was felt we were coming closeish to anything with a consistency of hard.
JB " we should give that reef a bit more room"
" You heard him Tone.. give it the JB70 "
" haw haw ha ha haw"

all in good spirit.. we did the right thing.

[Larks]

Is that it?? Or are you just teasing us out?? Don't make me do a JB70 on this thread mate!!!

[John B]

I was interrupted by people who were asking me about things, something called www, wwww,,wwork. Its not good.

By this time we'd had 3 upchucks and 3 falls. The upchucks were fixed pretty fast by patches and a change in diet. [YES, says very big loud background voice, YOU shouldna pigged out on that lasagne, the bacon and eggs, the pie, the porridge, the creamy rich soft cheese, DYA think yer cast iron gullet JB? eh? eh?]

yeah, but where'd the carrots come from, thats what I want to know.

The falls, minor dings ,and a warning to be more careful....

[John B]

So where were we, I'm home now.... Roight, hove to. Well, before we were hove to we actually got a little bit tricked. I will say now that this trickery had some influence on my JB70 stand .The day before, the wind moderated to about 20 knots and we thought that meant we were in for our weather change including the much aforecasted SW or yes, you guessed it, 20 knots from the SW. This 'we've broken the back of it' feeling and attitude was unfortunately a tad premature as later on in the evening we( our watch of Tony and myself) awoke to hear the shakin and shimmying of flogging sails. Kev and Skipper Dave were luffing through something like 45 or 50 knots. Tony and I climbed out of our comfortable bunks aka the cabin sole and got dressed in our wet weather gear( put hats on cos everything else was already on) and together we proceeded to reef the girl down to something a bit more suitable to the conditions. At that time we guessed that perhaps the SW20 knots hadn't actually arrived per se.
But at least now we get to the hove to bit.
" Y'ever hove this boat to Dave"
" Is it hove to or heaved to or hoven to, Have I heaved it to, you certainly heaved a lot to two nights ago"
" at least I ended up dry rea(t)ching unlike this boat, which was very wet"


" No"

[John B]

The storm jib had gone away the day before when the wind moderated so now we had a seriously well reefed {furled}cruising jib on, and its shape wasn't horrible, and the main was also rolled right down to a scrap smaller than the trysail. We tacked the boat and didn't tack the jib, locked the helm off to windward and she took to it like a duck. Big waves rolling and hissing past and breaking around us.. she loved it.
Tony had a kip on the transom seat



I took a LPBC photo



we had a nice cracker and cheese and salami lunch



Bliss.

[John B]

Its always hard to get a true idea of sea and waves from a photo, but some of these were , er.. large, and there were large holes ..

[Hwyl]

Is that a roller furling boom? If it is, it's the best I've seen.