Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2018 i Cruising Helmsman

JEANNEAU has seen its latest sailboat model, the Sun Odyssey 490, recognised by a prestigious international magazine: Robb Report. Each year, Robb Report Spain publishes its ‘Best of the best’ list for 24 categories, including wine, jewellery, real estate and aeronautics. At the awards night, Jeanneau received its listing as ‘Best boat’. The award underscores the work by the Jeanneau designers: Philippe Briand naval architect and interior designer Jean-Marc Piaton to produce a yacht including a few design changes not seen previously in other production yachts. The Sun Odyssey 490 utilises standard innovations seen on production yachts nowadays, such as: a full length chine; secure and separate helm stations; twin rudders; standard retractable bow thruster; cathedral rigging; L-shaped keel and an integrated bowsprit. However, an entirely different feature has been…

TOIO STYLING TO AUSTRALIA Quality Marine Clothing (QMC) now includes Toio yachting gear from Italy. Toio was started by the original founder of Slam clothing and intends to deliver the same performance gear rationale for sailing. QMC say the collection is characterised by elegant lines and a slim cut, combining traditional colours of the nautical world such as pearl white, dark navy and optical greys with aggressive splashes of orange throughout the range. The materials used are the result of the founder’s four decade-long journey around the world, seeking and sourcing the best. The result is intended to merge Italian creativity with Hong Kong efficiency of manufacture. Toio designs, tests and conceives sportswear its technical sailing apparel for weekend amateurs through to the pros. The range covers jackets, polo shirts,…

The following shows what information each type of transponder will receive from the other. *Heading data rarely sent needs gyro input to AIS. Static information: • every 6 minutes and on request • IMO number • name and call sign • length and beam • type of ship • location of position fixing antenna Position report: • every 3min where speed over ground is less than 2kn, or every 30 seconds for greater speds • MMSI number • ship’s longitude, latitude, true heading with accuracy indication • position time stamp in UTC • course over ground • speed over ground • rate of turn, right or left, from 0 to 720 degrees per minute • Voyage information: • every 6min, when data is amended, or on request • ship’s draft…

FIFTY seven years ago 18 year old Graham, his 23 year old brother and two cousins sailed via the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea to Australia in the Golden Lotus, a 36 foot Chinese junk. In Graham’s words: “the voyage of the Golden Lotus in 1961/62 was a remarkable adventure made in an era when young people knew very little of the wide world beyond their immediate horizons.” In 2015 Danny and I sailed from New Zealand to Fiji and then to Australia in our 30’ yacht Sam. I sent e-mails home to New Zealand, which were shared with a neighbour, the afore-mentioned Graham. Below are some abridged e-mails I sent, along with replies from Graham comparing our trip with his, five decades prior. ISLAND EXPLORING Mo: four…

STEPPING off our tender into the warm tropical waters and walking up the picturesque white, sandy beach through the trees I was not expecting what I saw next. An expansive field of white sand and concrete slabs are all that remains of the basic fibrolite huts built to house an indigenous leper colony (lazaret) that closed its doors for the final time in 1973. The deserted site is powerfully evocative and draws you into explore and want to learn more about the people who lived here and what took place. In January 1940, a train carrying 49 indigenous leprosy patients including Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, South Sea Island and Chinese descent transferred from Peel Island lazaret, arrived in North Queensland and were transported by boat to their new home joining…

MANY people go to a marina because that’s where their boat is kept. If you are coastal cruising then you may go to marinas to collect friends and family that are visiting, reprovision, top up your water tanks, add some fuel or seek refuge from bad weather. If you’re cruising internationally you will most likely go to a marina as part of your clearance-in procedure when arriving from overseas. After hearing about a particular marina from cruising friends, we decided to make a detour and go to see for ourselves this unique environment. So what was so different that we went out of our way to go there? It was the state of the berths at high tide and the amazing amount of debris that flows down the river, especially…

Serves two as a main course on a dull day. To make fish stock: save the heads and skeletons from any fish you’ve taken the fillets off. Put them in your largest pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Add roughly chopped onion, carrots and celery if you have them. When the fish has fallen off the bones, drain off the stock. I use a colander nestled over another large pot for this task. Once cool, decant into plastic containers. Refrigerate or freeze until you are ready to make chowder. The fish frames make good ground bait. To prepare the mussels: gather a bucketful of blue-lipped mussels at low tide. Tip them into a large pot with a little water and steam until open. Turn off the heat…

OWNERS of larger boats on the New South Wales coast will be happy to hear about 22 new berths available at Anchorage Marina in Port Stephens, as of December 2017. Works have started in earnest to upgrade marina facilities and install an entire new marina arm specifically for larger boats sized 17 metres to 20 metres (56 to 66 feet). Existing docks have been removed to create room for the new arm, providing space for longer motor and sailing yachts to manoeuvre. Old pilings have also been removed and replaced with new. Contractors are also upgrading the fuel dock, allowing boats up to 30m to sail in and tie up for refuelling. New marina manager, Patrick Whetter, has seen the growth of demand for larger, more luxurious yachts over the…

GIVEN the forecast, it was good to see a healthy 37 entries this year for the 26th running of the Beneteau Cup in Sydney Harbour. This meant around 240 skippers and crew took part, beginning with champagne and croissants before the race briefing ashore. Despite rainy and squally conditions, two races were run during the day for the two non-spinnaker divisions and one spinnaker division. The yachts managed to sail the width and breadth of the harbour for the best scenic route. In non-spinnaker division A, Flying Cloud owned by Howard Piggott took first place followed by John and Kim Clinton’s Holy Cow with Belle Époque, Gareth Jones, third. Jones had only taken delivery of his boat a few weeks ago and was competing in his first Beneteau Regatta. Division…

WATERPROOFING OPENING PORTS There must be thousands of opening ports that rely on the integrity of a small rubber gasket to prevent leaks. As we all know rubber perishes, so owners put up with minor leakage, placing towels under the ports and using all sorts of other coping strategies until they finally decide to fix the problem. Replacement gaskets are available for most of these ports. They are usually expensive, but guaranteed to fit and maintain watertight integrity for many years. However, the Goiot ports on the Jeanneau we were working on had probably seen many replacement gaskets, of which the current iterations were non-genuine. They had been satisfactory for years, but had reached the end of service life. As the boat was about to set off cruising, genuine gaskets were…

REFUELING your boat at home is rarely a problem; there are plenty of jetties, fuel barges and marina dock fuel points to choose from, all selling fresh clean fuel. Cruising overseas, however, can be another story. During our travels through Indonesia, Malaysian Borneo and the Philippines we found that generally the only available option was to refuel manually, by 20 litre diesel container. There were very few fuel barges or wharves and those we found would not sell to us as the locals bought fuel at a subsidised rate and they had no ability to charge anyone else the unsubsidised rate. We would dinghy our containers ashore and carry them to the local ‘fuel outlet’. In Indonesia this was often a shack near the beach with several rusty 200 litre…

REGARDLESS of where you cruise or the size of your boat, there will be nights when it will roll. Sometimes you make a bad anchorage judgement call. Sometimes the forecast is wrong: yes, it does happen. Sometimes you have no choice. But you can be sure that some time in your cruising life you will encounter a rolly anchorage. For sure the boat will roll, but it is how you prepare that determines whether you enjoy a reasonable sleep or endure a night of misery. Yes, your multihull will roll too, maybe with less amplitude but certainly in a more jerky fashion. It may not be the rolling that will keep you awake, but the noises generated by the boat almost certainly will annoy someone aboard. If this is you,…

MULTIHULL Central held its Sydney Harbour regatta last October. The fleet included ten Seawind catamarans a Corsair trimaran, a Schionning and GBE, with an Aquila 44 powercat hosting media for a weekend of fun racing, waterside partying and dining. But the event was more than just an excuse to party. It kicked off with a ‘How to trim sails on a multihull’ workshop, hosted by Multihull Central’s Peter Backhouse who, along with his team, commission new boat deliveries. The fleet then hit the harbour with a robust sail enjoying 20 knot to 25 knot winds, followed by a waterfront party at Multihull Central’s marina headquarters. Once the sun went down, a screening of the SEAbbatical film festival, which débuted at Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show this year, was projected onto…

RECENTLY I was reading a vent from a cruiser describing how dangerous it can be to use an AIS to avoid close quarter situations. From what I could work out they had not long installed an AIS and, by the sounds of it, had problems either operating it or maybe relied heavily on the data but did not know how to interpret the information. The author then continued with nothing good to say about the system at all. I must admit I was a little taken aback by the comments. While I am sure their experience was not nice I do wonder, if they had a better understanding of the system, whether their encounter would have been totally different. The good news is they did not get hurt and I…

This month’s prize will go to Simona Beĉanová. Thanks to the Australian Madura Tea company for supplying one of these boxes. 
www.maduratea.com.au DIDUNO Anyone sailing across Bass Strait this month might like to reflect on Michael Blackburn’s thirteen hour crossing in a 4.2m Laser dinghy in 2005. It probably helped that he was the world’s third-ranked Laser sailor at the time. HOW TO STORE FRESH HERBS AND VEGETABLES While Simona Beĉanová was delighted to be given several bunches of homegrown herbs, she had no idea how to keep them fresh. Not wanting to waste them, she figured out a way to make them last, in the refrigerator, for up to three weeks. Take two sheets of paper towel, wet them and place on the bottom of a plastic container. Add…

LIVING on a yacht pretty much forces you to go at the same pace as the wildlife. Very slow and cruisey with the occasional burst of flurried activity on which your very survival may depend. A lot of people struggle with the mostly slow pace of life aboard but not me. Some people might even say I have always gone at a slow pace. Whatever. My relaxed pace gives me the time to have many close encounters with wildlife I would otherwise miss. While it is hard to miss a huge whale breaching, it’s easy to miss some of the small stuff if you are rushing around. You need to slow down for a good close look at the environment you’re living in. HQ ECOSYSTEM If I stay somewhere long…

“LOOK here busters, I am looking for a good place to land,” I explained to three seagulls screeching over a cockle. “If this salty washing machine lets me,” I clarified, as much to myself as to the seagulls who were regarding me with reproach. I poked the dinghy into various kelp-ridden swirls. There were a few moments when I had to throttle away from impending rocky doom. OK, that is a bit dramatic, but eventually the gulls and I agreed on a spot. I cut the outboard, tilted its leg out of the water and grabbed onto the oars. There was a massive surge and I waited patiently for the next set to pass before paddling furiously and landing as safely as I knew how. Shipping the oars, I scrambled…