Cruise of the Ketch Julia

[J.Madison]

At low tide the sounder read 6.3 ft, which is about 18 inches under the keel. In the clear water we could see our chain on the bottom and the anchor holding well nearly buried in sand.





With the wind predicted to change directions two more times in the next 24 hours, we set sail again for wide Spike cove on Clarke Island. Again it was a bit exposed at first but would improve as the wind changed. This seemed like a better alternative to having good protection at first that gets worse during the night.



The island was very pretty, looking competely desolate with lumps of granite piled up everywhere and no sign of any human existance.



After a week of continuously topping up the coolant I finally spotted the leak. The gasket at the exhaust manifold had given out, and the water-cooled manifold was spilling its coolant, possibly pressurizing the system via the exhaust. Luckily the whole thing runs very cool due to the water jacket, so it came apart easily. This anchorage is well and truly in the middle of nowhere. But we had what we needed on board, a sheet of metal exhaust gasket material, high temp gasket compound, and the tools to shape the material. A new gasket was made to match the old one, the bolt holes punched using a grommet tool for fabric. It worked well.

[J.Madison]

A line of low clouds passed overhead, delineating the front that was to change the wind direction.



The new wind direction gave us protection from the land, but put us beam-on to the swell coming in from the ocean. No matter, it was just a small swell, barely uncomfortable and surely the new wind will knock it down quickly. Somehow the swell only built during the night, it must have been blowing harder out in the Bass Straight somewhere. We rolled deep, and we got up in the night several times to stow things better as it felt like we were rolling along downwind with no sail up.

The weird counter swell finally eased the next morning, and we set out to explore the island.



There is a little protected cove at the end of the bigger cove, and we beached the dinghy at the head.





What an epic, desolate, beautiful place, with no other humanity to be seen.

[J.Madison]

We didn't stray much from the beach, as this area is known for its giant poisonous tiger snakes. We don't know much about them, except that we are scared of them and we don't have any anti-venom on board.



Conditions were shaping up for our next passage. We decided on a 10 pm departure, catching the tail end of the favorable current through Banks straight between the Furneaux group and Tasmania itself. Currents run very strong through here, and like everywhere else waves can be large.



We made excellent time with the current boost, motoring in calm conditions. We weren't quite past the straights when the tide changed, and we dropped to a measly 3 knots as it built against us. Eventually we left the straight behind, curving down around the top of Tasmania to it's east coast. The repair on the exhaust was holding well as we motored through the night.



The breeze did fill in eventually and we had a lively sail down the coast.

[J.Madison]

The headland of Wineglass bay came into view as we surfed toward it.



The dolphins were obviously having a good time, riding the face of the growing waves and jumping clear as they broke against our bow.



All day we had slowly been overhauled by a wooden boat coming up behind us. They passed us as we entered the bay, somehow carrying a full headsail while we had only a reefed main. This was Anitra V, and we felt a little better when we learned that she had won the Sydney-Hobart race back in the day.



Throughout the afternoon an entire flotilla of wooden boats blew into the bay, looking for shelter on their way to Hobart for the festival.



Wineglass bay is a beautiful spot, a protected park with no road access.

[J.Madison]

We took a swim and were shocked at the water temperature. It was cold! Much too cold for an extended swim or snorkeling without a wetsuit. It was invigorating just for a quick dip. We are in the Tasman Sea, not the tropical waters of Fiji any more! In fact, we are just as close to the shores of Antarctica as we are to the lattitude of Fiji, and you can feel it.



We awoke the next morning, and as usual most of the fleet had gotten started before us. We followed them out, setting just the reefed main at first, as there was predicted to be 25 kts all day.



I considered setting the jib to catch our compatriots, but decided to wait to see what was actually happening out at sea. As we rounded the headland a series of williwaws blasted down off the mountain, not raising a swell in the short fetch but slamming into us. We were running off downwind and blasted along reaching 9 knots, the fastest we have ever gone without the influence of a current, and the wind was probably 40 knots or so. The boat was badly over pressed, and I was worried that the running backstay or something else in the rig might give up, not to mention I could barely hold the flexing tiller over with both arms against Julia's desire to round up. We had to make a change, and fast. We rounded up and Whitney jumped forward to claw the sail down. With full battens the sail doesn't normally flog at all, but it was cracking back and forth despite the battens. She got it down and we fell back off under bare poles, back under control. Inching out some jib we tore off on our original course.



The wind has a chill in these lattitudes as it blows over the cold water. Great sailing though.

[J.Madison]

Away from the mountain things calmed down and we needed a bit more sail.







We had fast sailing all day as we clocked off the miles along Tasmania's east coast.

[J.Madison]

We rounded up into Spring Bay, anchoring off the mouth of the river at Triabunna.



Triabunna is a pleasant small fishing town with one old pub and a small grocery store. The economy still revolves around fishing, but is getting a boost from the steady stream of tourists catching the ferry to the old prison colony on offlying Maria island.



During a lull in the wind we moved into the marina, expecting several days of nasty weather as a low blew through. It had been a couple weeks since we last took on food or water in Sydney, and meals were getting a bit dire on board, so it was good to find civilization again. There is a large cohort of camper vans that visit the town, so a laundromat and shower facility has been set up that we made good use of.



The old pub dates to 1838 and we spent a number of hearty evenings there, telling tales with the other sailors and filling ourselves on the old fashioned plates of meat and chips.



The fishing seems to be centered around what they call crayfish. They are large lobster, but without any pinchers. I really like the style of boats that are used in the industry. They are heavy wooden boats about 50 ft long with a small aft pilothouse and a live-well for the "fish" amidships. They are big hearty boats built of huon and celery top pine. The fleet in Triabunna is kept in very good condition. These are honest working wooden boats, and well maintained.

[J.Madison]

They almost all have a Gardner placard on the house, and they sound great coming and going.



This one was still tacky the paint was so fresh, and I later saw them at the boat festival.



The traps used for the crays are hand built of steam bent saplings.



There is also a junior version of the boats, exactly the same except only maybe 28-30 ft long and absolutely adorable. I have a serious soft spot for small boats with pilothouses. It was later described to me that the small ones are for beginners, you either succeed and move up to a big boat, or you quit fishing and do something else so the small boats tend to have a lot more owners than the big boats which are often fished their entire career by the same owner.



After the low blew itself out, we left Triabunna and passed along inside Maria Island. It is basically inshore waters all the way from here to Hobart, as the series of islands lends protection.



With the bright sun, cool crisp breeze, and dry meadows between forested hills it felt like we had sailed back to the San Juan islands.

[J.Madison]

As there were 4m seas rolling along ouside the islands left over from the blow we decided to take the inside channel behind Forestier Penninsula rather than going around outside. This meant we would miss the prison colony museum at Port Arthur, but it would save some 30 nautical miles.



We entered the extremely shallow waters of the entrance to Blackmans bay, following the crowd-sourced navionics charts rather than the out of date government charts between the shifting sand bars. There were some tense moments as we wove down the channel, but we never touched the bottom.





There were many aquaculture farms in the protected waters inside the bay.

[J.Madison]

As the transit of the canal has to be booked in advance, and also needs to align with high tide, we grabbed the public mooring near the entrance to wait for our transit the next morning.



After radio confirmation the next morning we headed up into the man-made canal. This was a bit nerve-wracking, as the charts dont show much and the website indicated that we would be less than a foot off the bottom if we interpreted the tides correctly. The bridge was open for us and we made it through without issue.



Popping out the other side we were within one day's striking distance of Hobart, the canal is a serious shortcut.





Maintenance is continuous, but really picked up as we were nearing a boat show!



We anchored for the night in Lime Bay.

[johngsandusky]

Great report, thanks! It makes me dream of cruising again soon.

[AJZimm]

This latest update really made my morning. Thanks!

Glad you found the coolant leak and it was an easy fix. Could have been a nightmare if it was in the head gasket or someplace it could get into the lube oil.

[Rich Jones]

Thanks for the photo journey!

[WX]

Excellent photos. I sense a book in this voyage.

[pez_leon]

[auscruisertom]

Thanks for sharing you guys made my night, and brought back some great memories.

[J.Madison]

We spent a day at Lime Bay, waiting for the headwinds to ease a bit before pushing on to Hobart.



A track ran along the beach and then cut across the headland to the beach on the other side.





The other beach was certainly more exposed, and drifts of fine sand migrated in from the shore.





It was a windblown place. On the way back we did find some of the infamous cube poops of the wombat, but we didn't spot the creatures themselves.

[J.Madison]

The next day we still had headwinds, but they were lighter and we put up full sail to work into them.





We towed a fishing line the whole way, without any luck.

[J.Madison]

We tacked upwind for miles, until we finally overhauled the iron pot lighthouse marking the entrance to the River Derwent. It was constructed by convicts in the 1830s and is the oldest existing tower in Australia.



Finally we were able to bear off and ease the sheets a bit for a nice run up the river.



We anchored fairly deep off Battery point, all the better spots being occupied by moorings.



Beautiful boats kept passing by us, heading into the Australian Wooden Boat festival. We were quite jealous as despite some last minute heroics we were unable to get into the show.



The first event of the festival is a giant sailing parade, so we hoisted sail and joined in.

[J.Madison]

Certainly more square riggers than I've ever sailed in company with before.



And then, out of nowhere, a familiar shape appeared alongside! Indi is an Ingrid that I followed online when she was getting a major rebuild. I had totally forgotten that there was an Ingrid in these waters but I recognized her immediately.

[J.Madison]

And the festival was on!

The James Craig is the real thing, not a replica. It was built in 1874 and has rounded cape horn 23 times as a cargo vessel. In the 30s she was abandoned and a hole blown in the stern to sink her. Somebody with a lot a vision and money raised her in the 70s and undertook a full restoration and it is now rated to sail with passengers. Think of this next time somebody asks about restoring a tired old boat. She is iron, not wood, but nobody was mad they let her into the wooden boat festival.





We ran into fellow PNWer Kaci Cronkhite (of Pax fame). She was sailing on Holger Danske, by Aage Nielsen. What a boat. Everything is so big and burly and well thought out. We were very enamored by it. An ocean crossing machine.





Unlike in Port Townsend, the festival is spread over 4 or 5 different basins, with numerous shore-side locations as well. The whole event is two, maybe three, times bigger than the PT show. It is a serious production.



The location is great, right in the heart of the city.

[J.Madison]

Hobart is great. It feels more like England than anywhere else in Australia. Stone warehouses along the harbor have been upscaled into boutiquey restaurants and hotels.



The old neighborhoods are filled with adorable little Edwardian squares and rectangles that wouldn't be big enough for the tv room on most american houses.



We grabbed some drinks at the Shipwright's Arms, a proper sailor's pub founded in 1846. Its chock full of nautical paraphenalia from the Sydney-Hobart races over the years. We've been watching cricket at the various pubs. Still haven't figured it out, but boy is it exciting when the pitcher winds up and does a twenty meter sprint before throwing the ball at the batter's ankles. It's like if baseball used a 2x6 instead of a bat and nobody had any gloves to catch the ball. Kind of hardcore, but we have yet to figure out what the score is in any of the games we've watched.



The party goes on for four days, so here are some more postcards from it. The treadle lathe tent was in fine form when we stopped by, they were making belaying pins by the dozen.



There were 8 or 10 Lyle Hess cutters stacked up in the inner basin. One thing this show does really well is grouping boats by type, which makes for very interesting comparisons.



Here's the Ingrid Indi, and another Atkin double ender that I didn't get to learn any more about.

[J.Madison]

A big collection of steam and vintage make-and-break engines rattled away the entire show, probably getting more running hours than the rest of the year combined.



Storm bay is a lovely topsail cutter with the original live-well still functional. It is over a century old, and owned by one of the founders of the festival I believe.



The fishing fleet had a large showing. I asked an old fisherman about the cray traps and he told me they still use the traditional style partly because they actually fish better. He thought that they settle into the kelp and look natural and the crays dont hesitate to climb right in. He says they are primarily used in shallow waters along the cliffs, for deep waters they use industrial traps because they are heavier and less likely to drag in the swell.



Here is how they make them. First, the saplings are steam bent to shape.



In the back you can see the first stage, where plastic rod is woven over the forms to provide the trap entrance. The wooden hoops make up the bulk of the trap, and then the bottom is formed last. It is made of old wire rope to provide weight to keep the trap upright when deployed. These are still produced commercially, and can be purchased for about $300 each.



Here's another view of "Hess Row."

[J.Madison]

I don't know what this macabre display was about, perhaps it was a reminder that boats must behave?



This was a fully restored and yachtified example of the small cray fishing boats. The work was done by Mackenzie Marine in the Sydney area, and they did a great job. Like I said, I am a sucker for small boats with pilothouses.



The shipwright was on board, and he was kind enough to tell me that he had actually pinched a few little ideas off me from one of the videos I made about preparing Julia to put to sea. It's a small world in wooden boats.





I believe I only saw two schooners at the festival, (out of nearly 400 boats) both were Aldens. I spotted this Malabar I from a mile off, there aren't many boats of this shape in Aus. It was a beauty, made me wish I had painted our bulwarks instead of spending so much agony on the varnish.



This was the other schooner, one of the original big Aldens. I forget which one. It is being rebuilt, partly by troubled teens using some government funds. They were obviously in the midst of some serious centerline and plank replacements, being done in the water. Try doing that in your marina in Seattle!

[J.Madison]

We met lots of interesting people, and reconnected with many more who we had crossed tacks with before.



This beauty from the late 1800s had just been relaunched after a restoration at Cygnet Wooden Boats. It is triple skin kauri, a gentlemans racer with a massive gaff rig. They did an amazing job on it.





We ran into our friend Ed, whos family had lent us their car in Coff's Harbor. He was about to embark on a voyage around the rough west side of Tasmania and across the Bass Straight on the square rigger Young Endeavor. That would be a very cool first ocean voyage.



There's always that one guy, who not only makes a varnished dolly for his dinghy, but also makes mahogany hubcaps complete with inlaid compass rose.



There were a couple of Herreshoffs present. Mobjack maybe?

[J.Madison]

This is another of the raised deck boats we discussed a few pages back. I like the concept, makes for a very usable forepeak.



We toured one big heavy gaff ketch. The space in the cabin was dreamy. When we get around to high lattitude voyages, it will be on a proper big ketch like this. It even had a pilothouse.



We did a quick lap through the small boat hall.



The sail area to displacement ratio of this boat was off the charts! They hoisted the spinnaker to the peak of the gaff to get just a little bit more area. I cannot imagine gybing.

[gray duck]

Thanks for taking us around the world with such great pictures and details!
Festival looks amazing!
I was once there after a Sydney-Hobart race (86/87) and they said the area around the docks was more shallow because of all the beer cans. I think the Tassie brand was Cascade?

[Woxbox]

What a great show. Thanks for the tour.

[Hugh MacD]

Huge Thanks! That's a goal for one of these days. Our daughter lives in Coffs Harbour and we have yet to go visit her in the summer...maybe next year. We have been down to visit and made it to the Franklin Wooden Boat Center and did a "day sail" on "Yukon". Fun stuff!

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

And the festival was on!

The James Craig is the real thing, not a replica. It was built in 1874 and has rounded cape horn 23 times as a cargo vessel. In the 30s she was abandoned and a hole blown in the stern to sink her. Somebody with a lot a vision and money raised her in the 70s and undertook a full restoration and it is now rated to sail with passengers. Think of this next time somebody asks about restoring a tired old boat. She is iron, not wood, but nobody was mad they let her into the wooden boat festival.

I am happy to see the James Craig looking so good. I bummed a day sail on her back in 2003. That adventure taught me a lot about the wonderful generosity of Australians. I was in Sidney for the first day of a business trip and wandered down to the waterfront to see what was under the stately masts I could see from my hotel room. When I arrived at the gangplank I saw that this beautifully restored vessel was swarming with folks, looking like they were preparing to cast off. I asked if I could come along and their response was, "I don't know why not?" It was an unforgettable day. By the way, the beautiful woodwork on that iron vessel probably outweighs most wooden boats.

James Craig 2003.jpg

[AJZimm]

Thanks for the thoughtfully curated tour of the festival.

Must have been hard to figure out which pictures to leave out!

[J.Madison]

It was very affirming to end up at the festival, surrounded by so many wooden boats and the culture that sustains them, after a year in the Pacific where we could count the number of wooden boats we saw on one hand. We had a great time.

Dad caught his flight home and we sailed down the Derwent for one more party. Our new friends on Indi (the other ingrid) invited us to a gathering of sailors on Bruny Island.

We anchored next to an Atkin Eric, and then Indi sailed in to anchor as well. Later a few more wooden boats showed up, and a fiberglass Ingrid too! This was quite a gathering of Atkin double enders, way down here at the end of the earth.





Bruny Island is nearly 100 km long, reaching from the entrance to the River Derwent in the north and stretching almost to the southernmost extremity of Tasmania. It is, as they are fond of saying here, an island off an island off an island. Between Bruny Island and Tasmania is the protected D'Entrecasteaux Channel. The island is covered by rolling sheep pastures and eucalypt forests. On the mainland side of the channel apple orchards and vineyards are along the shore and dense green forest rises beyond. As Kaci pointed out, this entire area feels like a mirror image of Port Townsend and the offlying islands. The cool winds and waters, the people and the culture, right down to driving on the other side of the road. We agreed it felt like a big upside-down image of home. Actually this area has the major advantage of a much smaller population. Buying a waterfront farm or a little cottage in one of the villages seems possible, if not actually affordable.

The party was a smashing success, with a big band playing late, and funds raised for the local sailing club.





We set sail back to Hobart, pounding into a stiff breeze to collect Whitney's sister, who was flying in on somewhat of a quick surprise visit. The next morning we turned around and headed back down to Bruny Island, intent on showing her a bit of the good life. Unfortunately the wind switched directions and we were bashing into it again, with rain as well. The ladies were happy, as they hadn't seen each other in a long time.



As the rain stopped we entered the extremely protected basin of Barnes Bay to anchor for the night.

[J.Madison]

A attempt to head further down the channel in the morning failed due to strong gusty headwinds, so we peeled off for shelter at Kettering on the mainland side of the channel. On shore it was a beautiful breezy day, we walked the shoreline and up into the farmlands a bit.







Fully embracing the tourist life, we rented electric bikes and hopped on the ferry back to Bruny Island for a day of exploration.



The island really only has traffic when the ferry unloads, so between ferries it is a bicycling paradise.

[J.Madison]

Despite being very rural, a few places cater to the tourists. We had lunch at the cheese maker's restaurant, trying sides of roast wallaby and smoked local trout.



Riding on, we reached the narrow ithsmus between north and south Bruny. That is the open Tasman sea on the left and the protected channel on the right.





We had a great ride, and were all thankful for the electric boost on the hills. It is beautiful country.



\

On the ferry back, the local evening races were going on. I was impressed by Saona's ability to carry full sail in conditions where we certainly would be reefed.

[J.Madison]

As the days were rapidly slipping by and we had to get back within striking distance of the airport, we headed north to Hobart once again. On schedule the wind clocked back the other way and we had stiff headwinds yet again, for the third time in a row. The winds were strong enough that we set the reefed mainsail and the staysail, as it has a better upwind shape than a deeply reefed jib.

The gusts spilling over the uneven terrain are really something here. I was at the mast attempting to pull another reef down into the main when a particularly strong gust hit and the shackle at the tack of the staysail let go. Because it is set on a dyarchy stay, the entire sail was now free except for the halyard and the clew. I wrestled it down on deck without losing anything, except probably scaring our visiting crew.



It appears the shackle was actually brass rather than bronze like I thought.



Up the river we tacked, hour after hour.



We finally found shelter at Bellerive, and happily hid below for the night.

The next day we dedicated to comfortable shore-side activities, putting on our city hats and visiting the botanical gardens.