Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2016 i Cruising Helmsman

LETTER OF THE MONTH Oceanic plastic pollution Debi Thornely (‘A challenging question to readers’, letters, October CH) raises many questions in her letter. As she rightly says the issue of pollution is not new, but sadly the scale of it is growing and as it becomes more and more prevalent it becomes more apparent to us all, thus prompting the kind of questions that Debi poses. Sadly, we have become a disposable society, continually striving for cheaper products. If, as the customer, we demand more for our money the suppliers find a way of driving the price down to meet that demand. Inevitably this means poorer quality products, with a shorter functional life or products so cheap that the only way the supplier can make an acceptable profit is to…

I lay in my bunk gripping the sides with white knuckles, feeling the painful legacy of this rough passage on my upper left arm. The bruise, now looking very impressive, happened last night when I was in the cockpit having a wash. Our small 29 foot Duncanson, Shearwater II, did a mighty broach and I was thrown sideways, catching my arm on the hatch way entrance. It is 0300 and outside it is soupy black. There is no moon and the clouds are obscuring the stars. We are passing over a sea mount on our voyage from the Cocos Keeling Islands to Rodrigues. It will take us five or six hours to pass over this mountain under the sea where the depth has suddenly risen from 5,500 metres to 1,500ms,…

Many cats carry the dinghy in davits, but very few have a way to hold it steady in a seaway. On his Fusion 40 Bossa Nova, Neville Mills made a small ‘spinnaker pole’ for each end of the dinghy. The poles were made from aluminium tubing, which was anodised after cutting and drilling. Small spinnaker pole fittings were added to each end of both poles, the plan being to utilise the tow rings on the dinghy. Neville’s first challenge was to work out how long to make each pole and then to decide where to fit the stainless steel eyes to attach the poles. They say measure twice, cut once, but Neville reckons he measured about twenty times before taking a drill to the fibreglass. His new system has proven…

For many cruisers (your author included) one of the most appealing images of the cruising lifestyle is sitting at anchor in some very beautiful and secluded spot, surrounded by nothing but sea and scenery. For those cruisers (again including your author), a reef anchorage is up there with the stuff of dreams. Fortunately for cruisers in Australian waters, reef anchorages are both available and the world’s best. Reef brief Let us step back a moment to be clear on what we mean by a ‘reef anchorage’. Any feature lying beneath the surface of the water may be called a reef. Hence, there are man-made reefs placed to improve fishing or diving and abiotic reefs formed with non-living components such as sand bars or wave eroded rocks. For our purposes here,…

A nice romantic title, but if you are expecting a Mills and Boon story better keep on looking. Light, in this instance, is sunlight and how we can turn it into electricity. Romance is often described as “electric” but I am yet to understand how this sensation can be used to charge a battery. But we must live in hope. Solar panels however, have been around for quite some time and the good news is they keep getting cheaper and more efficient. What would have set you back a king’s ransom, well perhaps a lesser bureaucrat, ten years ago is now very affordable. An example close to my heart, (there’s that romance again) are the two 100 watt panels I bought in 2004; these beauties cost nearly US$1000 each at…

Charlie and Betty Preen bought Cumberland Charter Yachts in 1988 and have helped expand the charter yacht market in the Whitsundays. But their contribution to cruising is so much more. After twelve years at the helm of CCY, the couple retired in 2000 to finally do what they had helped so many others accomplish: go cruising. But, three years later during the process of buying a new Dehler 41, they instead placed it into the CCY charter fleet and returned to the company. In 2006 they once again said farewell and tried to restart their cruising retirement plans. Again they cut their trip short to return in 2013 to Airlie Beach. Tourism in Queensland had fallen on hard times and Charlie’s experience, knowledge and drive was needed to ensure Cumberland…

CH contributor Jacinta Stafford sends in her report of the Darwin to Ambon race. If someone had told me 25 years ago that I would be in an international yacht race I would have laughed fit to split my pants. Yet, last September, I found myself on my second international race aboard our Mottle 33 Our Philosophy. The Darwin to Ambon Yacht Race has a unique history and a unique culture that surrounds it. It attracts IRC boats as it is an epic journey across the Banda and Timor Seas and provides a competitive bluewater experience. But it also attracts cruising yachts who use the race as an opportunity to secure CAITS for further travel throughout Indonesia and an almost guided ocean crossing as the fleet keep an eye on…

A trip to the Whitsundays instead of winter at home, the cruise of a lifetime, or part of a grander plan? Whatever your motivation for sailing north this year, now is the time to prepare. The beauty of cruising is that whether it is your first or fortieth time up the coast, there is always something new to discover. Whether you have been to the Whitsundays before, or it is your first time, this is for you. I am going to talk about planning and the Queensland section of the trip; getting out of Moreton Bay and over the Wide Bay bar; daysailing up the coast and then about some of the best anchorages in the Whitsundays. The first thing is to decide whether you will actually have time to…

The true wonder of underwater encounters with rays, sharks, whales and dolphins makes their popularity understandable. Global cruising enables you free access to such experiences but are these always done in an environmentally sustainable way? Fish-feeding practices in places like the Caribbean or the South Pacific greatly impacts the natural social patterns and seasonal breeding or mating of the sea-creatures in question and can actually encourage uncharacteristically aggressive behaviour towards the very tourists seeking to interact with them. Another seasonal creature, the sailor, has an opportunity to promote some of the more harmless ways to seek out these magical meetings. A fine balance My first experience, getting up close with dolphins, was on my very first sailing trip. In the years since then we have been surrounded by sea turtles…

Knowledgeable advice is to run the engine prior to servicing. This thins the oil and makes pumping the old oil out easier. This is true, but working over a hot engine can be uncomfortable. In many engine installations a hot engine is a nightmare and the installation on Jon Neeves’s cat Josepheline is of the nightmare sort. To remove the oil filter it is necessary to lie across the top of the engine and remove the old filter hanging head down. There is simply not enough room to access the oil filter from the side; a downside to the narrow hulls of catamarans. The discomfort increases after Jon removes the filter and is unable to catch the spilling oil. Sound familiar? So what do you do? Jon wanted to make…

I love yachts. It does not matter what type, I love them all. It can make yacht hunting a bit tricky though. I can not buy every yacht I fall in love with, but I am armed for the hunt with sailing experience and knowledge of yachts accumulated over many years. The decision to buy a yacht should be made with your brain, not your heart. Of course if your brain knows nothing about sailing and yachts it might not be much help. A mate of mine said he wanted to get a yacht and I asked if he knew how to sail. He said no and I asked him what he knows about yachts and he said nothing. I said he should start learning all he could straight away.…

Recently formed yacht agency, The Multihull Group (TMG), travelled to Europe to see the development from Lagoon Catamarans regarding the upgraded 42 being launched. Lagoon Catamarans have been teasing the industry for a while now with news of this anticipated launch at the Düsseldorf International Boat Show this month. TMG managing director John Cowpe commented “this has been under wraps for a long time with thousands of development hours invested, as always Lagoon has utilised the best designers and interior experts on board throughout. The Lagoon 42 fits between its Lagoon 400 and the Lagoon 450, replacing the Lagoon 421. This new member of the Lagoon range maintains a family resemblance such as vertical bows, suspended coachroof, optimised rig. “This new 42 is comfortable, ergonomically smart and easy sailing and…

If you have just come up the NSW coast you will be an old hand at bar crossings, but for new cruisers heading north from Brisbane and others unfamiliar with bars, the crossing at the southern end of Fraser Island is a major hurdle. Forget all those bar-crossing-disaster stories, they happen when people do silly things. If you obey all the rules and use your head, your crossing will be uneventful. The major decisions concern timing. Naturally, you will take the advice of the Mooloolaba and Tin Can Bay VMR, heed the weather forecast and not set off if the swell is up. Your schedule will be sufficiently flexible that you can sit in Mooloolaba for a week or more if necessary. Tight schedules cause impatience, which leads to trouble…

During autumn and spring in southeast Australia, cruisers head north for the winter and head south again for summer. At the same time, humpback whales are also beginning their annual migration between their summer/ winter feeding grounds. With increasing numbers of both cruising yachts and whales migrating along the east coast of Australia, encounters are becoming more common. Whaling history Whaling took place early in Australia’s European history and continued until 1980. Between 1835 and 1845, 75 per cent of Australia’s southern right whale population was wiped out. Some years later, in 1952, the industrial scale shore-based whaling of humpbacks began at Tangalooma, followed in Byron Bay in 1953. By 1962, commercial whaling had reduced the number of humpbacks migrating along the New South Wales and Queensland coast to approximately…

When cruising far north Queensland (FNQ), everybody wants to spend some time in the water on the reef. Either scuba, hookah, free diving or snorkelling, we all love to experience that special outer reef world close-up. The biggest impediment is the daunting task of manoeuvring and anchoring near coral. Whether you are planning your trip or just out and about, if you are within 30 to 40 nautical miles of population centres all the best anchoring and diving locations are covered with private and a smattering of public moorings. So, do you use an available mooring, anchor if there is space or just give up and go to somewhere quieter? Using public moorings Hopping from one public mooring to another is an ideal way of visiting the reef. The following…

Awnings provide shade from the sun and shelter from rain and. perhaps. also intercept bird fouling. Many cover just the cockpit, but larger awnings protecting the cabin top or even most of the deck area are not uncommon. Deck awnings reduce heat entering through the deck, hatches and cabin-side glazing. They allow hatches to remain open during rain. If high enough they also allow people to relax or sleep where they are sheltered from dew, but get the maximum benefit of any breeze or lower overnight temperatures. Not surprisingly, extensive awnings are more common on boats in warm climates than elsewhere. Bimini kits and rectangular tarpaulins often provide satisfactory or adequate temporary off-the-shelf solutions, but many awnings are custom built to the owner’s requirements, even if the actual construction and…