Living Contentedly

It could be that we've just entered autumn or that I'm enjoying reading about Edward Allcard's cruise around Cape Horn, the Beagle Channel & Magellan Straits, but cruising cold waters really gets me rocking.  I have cruised some in tropical waters & find the mild air & sea temperatures & diving on coral, very alluring. But sitting below with lamps glowing, kettle hissing sofly, the boat pulling gently anchor under a chill clear night, is where my head is at mostly.  I want to head offshore in gentle westerly conditions, sail a grey-green sea to ports largely devoid of anchored craft & their crews.  

After years of scrimping & stressing over lack of money to put food on the table, keep cars running or bring some sailing joy into my life, I'm now lovongvon Easy Street. Last night putting a great wodge into a fixed term deposit & gifting my two children the first of many cash drops. It feels surreal, like its just numbers in my account.  But giving some to Mia & Joe & hoping they will get nice things, or tools to make their lives easier, is a great feeling. As usual, I'd prefer to see them enjoy it before me. This is one of the joys of parenting. I hope my parents had enjoyed some of this feeling. 

I am re-reading Edward Allcard's " Solo Around Cape Horn & Beyond". Written in 2016, when Allcard was 94, it details the expedition undertaken fr 1965 in the 36' Sea Wanderer .  I've just read of his successful doubling of the great cape, which was sailed easily in good sea conditions. But it is on the leadup, dropping down from Montevideo towards the Beagle Channel where Allcard pays his dues to the Sea Gods.  Its a wonderful read because it is plainly & simply a story about a fellow hell bent on a goal, that he strives to achieve through conditions that would send most men packing. The retelling is not dissimilar to the approach taken by Bill Tilman, embracing hardship & retelling the voyage with great understatement & modestly.   

I know I've visited this topic recently, but it's tossing around on my mind & I want to get it down in black & white.  You have an 18ft Ness Boat, why are you buying a boat by the same designer in the same length ?  While I am impressed with the speed of the Ness Boat, & her beauty, she is very wet. A little spray comrs off the bow, some shoots up her centreboard case but under load ahe takes gulps of water over her rails when hard pressed. So under pump of any breeze 12knots or more, you're full on keeping the water out.And that's on enclosed waters, so her prospects of handling a blow at sea are pretty poor. Sure sailors have done it, & I expect a yawl rig would help keep her head up while reefing as well as offer easier sail options. That gunter main is very large & basically if there is any wind, you need to reef. At 12knots, you need a second reef. But, she moves well & one option may be adding ballast.  Ness Boat; slender & ...

Infra red image of three active, named, cyclones fanning out across the Coral Sea & western  South Pacific Ocean.  And yes there is another Cyclone off the West Australian coast.  While any sensible sailors would be avoiding this area in Cyclone Season, I do hope there are no little boats being exposed.  I've never seen anything like this before.  Cyclone 'Alfred', off the northern tip of Australia is set to sweep southwards along the east coast. Stay tuned!

   Right now I  having a coffee, its dawn, my chest & nasal passages are dust effected, I feel ecstatic. Not cartwheels in the mode ecstatic, just really chuffed & happy with myself.    Happy to have begun the job & stoked to see the finished product.it is a job thats been put off. There have been many real & imagined obstacles; years ago it was an unsupportive griping partner who would have spoiled the work, having a bustling household wherebye quarantining the main floorspace would have been impractical & a poor result guaranteed. But nowadays I only need concern myself with my young adult son, two sensible cats (they will avoid the floor) & a highly strung dog who will walk over a wet floor to make sure his bed is still there.  So, anyway with the risks managed by time, I'm chosen to begin & in this case, that is definitely that most difficult step. Clearing the floor space & preparing the house for a solid dusting & h...

The PSYCH101 was horrified to hear about the practice of Phrenology & its deployment to justify racist social control.  Interestingly this Internet definition doesn't mention the race thingy. Too upsetting I suppose. Basically, (white) scientists measured the skulls of society's beautiful, intelligent & financially successful fellows (all white) & deed these the Gold Standard on Head Shape & Size. Wo BeTide someone with a non aristocratic dome, be found near the scene of a crime!  While sanding floors today,y mind kept drifting to my early days at Marist Brothers Hamilton. This boys high school has since achieved notoriety as a Hub for Paedophile Clergy. Back then we all thought the Brothers were mad disciplinarians, gay or very strange. But, being the 1970s we mostly copped it sweet & said nothing. A tiny minority of boys jacked up at mistreatment & assaulted their abusers with a hale of verbal abuse or actual physical assault. They were q...

At the moment the media is feeding off pre-election bullshit. Kissing babies, wearing hardhats & hi-vis vests & future spending promises. These are all sideshow alley routines to make the pol-lies appear normal & to distract from the realities; outrageous cost of living & a general economic lethargy.  I had two incidents yesterday that epitomise the state of play. Both had to do with hiring a floor sander. At the nation's lead chain hardware store, two machines were tagged off awaiting repairs. The young guy at the checkout, obviously annoyed, broke ranks with the company brainwashed employee codes & disclosed that they had been "like that for "more than six months & nobody is doing anything about it." He then apologized. From the company's POV, that's an example of the lethargy, lack of care or drive to feed the pol-lies through taxation perhaps. The worker's behaviour was more about; I'm sick of this place & don't car...

Strolling Aldi's fruit & veg aisle & i discovered a lose bag stuffed in one of the fruit boxes. Being frugal, I grabbed it & put three apples in it. I like singly selecting apples because i can hand pick the best fruit, & I've found the odd dud applea in the prepacked little boxes.  Anyway, I pop my apples in & one promptly escapes across the floor. i grabbed the tricky bugger & bagged him up.  At the checkout the same apple escaped the bag & rolled about the treadmill. I grabbed it again & rebagged the bugger, then as I put it in the trolley, guess what? That's when I renagged it to see it go through a hole in the bottom of the bag.  I then push my trolley down to the side of the car to load my groceries on to the back seat. I put the lose apple on the seat & tirmxto grab another handful of groceries before I hear a plonk. That little apple found its way out the door & across the car park! That's one tricky apple.  I put it on...

Two main things have marked progress towards my goal of getting tiny boat cruising.  Daily I've been working on ex-Jacaranda, my old 15ft clinker sailboat when I bought her from the neighbour of the son of the guy that built her, the onboard engine had been removed. That was good of course, but the disadvantage of this was that the engine box which doubled as seating had been removed. Jaca' effectively had only a place in the stern to sit. In lovely conditions, you either stood leaning against the coaming or squatted on a round beanbag cum pouffe that I picked up along the roadside. Over recent weeks I've built seats, with storage under, along either side of the cockpit. Happy with the look, I ripped out the cabin sole boards which were made of some horrid chipboard material & were not secured. These were replaced with what I call duckboards, four separate grids that I've get to secure. The umderseat constructions have been sealed & painted on bright grey paint,...

A ws2" alongside. Looks fresh, perhaps she has just launched.  this guy must be chuffed! A snig berth, kettle on, a beautiful wooden boat with its smells & sounds. Selkie's owner-builder tells me she chuckles along on the water. mm, clean without green gunnel paint which seems to be the ws uniform.  this could be a grey seal? Safety moored up, no rocking off to sleep tonight boys.  there's a wee seal in the garden! Well capable one author described her.   on her trailer, sitting pretty, ready to explore. Anywhere please.  Today, I took delivery ofy tow car. Next major stop is Goolwa to scoop up one of the prettiest tner boats afloat on Australia. SELKIE adorned the front cover of our Amateur Boat Builder rag. While a profession boat builder would build a safe boat &  a functional boat, the amateur takes extra time to add beauty & pride to his creation.   

On the way to pick up my 'new' car, I'm sitting in the third carriage of an eight (or so) carriage train bound for Sydney. I'm only going three stops along, to Cardiff. I asked a rail employee which car i should travel in to alight at my stop & indicated this carriage. If he got it wrong, ie. train in reverse order, I'm off to locations unknown.  I'm already late because my first train, heavily burdened by less than 20 passengers, arrived 6 minutes late. The connecting train chose that sixth minute to leave the station. Sometimes I think they're a clueless lot, but they are engaged in a chronic dispute for improved wages & conditions. You can't blame the poor mites for getting the details wrong occasionally. 

 As a displacement hull SELKIE'S maximum spred, or hill speed, can be calculated at below 5 & a half knots. That is if we assume a waterline length of 16 ft.  The hull speed can also be worked out using the formula:  S (knots) = 1.36x√LWL(ft) S = 1.36x4 S = 5.44 knots This is a guide only, higher speeds can be achieved in disturbed seas in fair conditions. Apparently, hull speed is the speed of the vessel creates a bow wave equal to its waterline length. Obviously the boat is not magically arrested at this speed, waves disturbances are established to make higher speeds less attainable.  Skipper Dan Turner, & several other competitors in the Mini Globe Race have reported top speeds of over 14knots. These speeds were peak speeds as the boat surfed downwind or on a beam reach. At only 25' LOD, the mini could not maintain this speed & them fell off the back of each wave & settling to 4 knots. Nevertheless, a handful of the dozen or so competit...

I love the concept of the name RLS gave to his beast of burden that accompanied him across the Cevennes. The name itself is nothing to crow about, bit the thought of a beast quietly carting its load over hilly terrain for hours each day, fillse with chuffiness.  At present I am reading one of Rannulph Fiennes' books, one about fear. I think its entitled "Fear", & gives ideas on how to deploy it in your adventurous moments. Of course none of us will be as adventurous as RF. Throughout many of his books he drops snippets of stories about walking across the poles, ie: The Poles!, over Everest etcetera. And of course he does that because he can, but also because it lends him a great deal of credibility & fame. It is therefore not surprising that I find him arrogant & boastful, worth reading about, but oh what a bore.  Elements of his early life come as no surprise; daddy led his regiment, we had black maids &  gardeners, my great grandparents grew up on prime...

"You may not have served in the SAS, or discovered a lost city in the sands of Arabia, climbed the deadly North Face of the Eiger, or summited Everest; butceach of is has goals we want to achieve, & our own metaphorical mountains to climb". Climb Your Mountain , Ranulph Feinnes. "If one should ask me what " use" there is in climbing, or attempting to climb the world's highest peak, I would be compelled to answer "none". ... it is the simple gratification of achievement, the indomitable desire to see what lies beyond that forever beats within the heart of man ". George Mallory.  Here I am just 64 years, wealthier than I have ever been, fitter than I have been for decades, but with failing eyesight. I could roll over, watch tv, eat rich foods & go on guided tours. But more than anything I want to take a tiny boat to sea, offshore as far as possible.  Am I fearful? Yes, of storms at sea obviously, but more significantly I am afraid of me...

Here's what I know from a phone conversation with SELKIE'S builder & owner.  Sails & Rigging : She has 2 sets of sails. An traditional cotton set handmade by Don Lucas, a Master Sailmaker who does guest builds at Mystic Seaport. P describes them as beautiful & smelling nice , but had them replaced for regular use & are only rigged for boat day displays. The newer set at, I imagine, Dacron & the jib is over size.  Stainless steel rigging was replaced with Dyneema in 2024.  The rig is gunter lug. The main is hoisted on the main halyard, the top spar is them trimmed to about 15° off the mast, " not hard against like Mirror Dinghy . Timber spars, apart from the mast, all is stowed under a boat cover. The mast needing a revarnish each other year. Under Sail : She will carry full sail to 18 knots & is described as being a gentle & forgiving sailer, " never anything nasty or upsetting ". She is a dry boat & she once " handled running...

- presently there are 20 wildfires burning on Tasmania. These are predominantly in  rainforest areas ie: not normally subject to burning. - record breaking rainfalls in parts of north Queensland are causing extensive floods. Paluma recorded 2,017mm.  - level 5 cyclone Zelia is expected to cross the Pilbara coast in the next 24 hrs. While cyclones are common, having one at this level is "pretty rare" (BOM).

While I have been busy refitting my 15' clinker, my mind has locked on to SELKIE. I am aware I have to secure arow vehicle to retrieve her from 1500klm to the WSW.  Yesterday l missed a low kilometre diesel Subaru. There is some hope that the prospective buyer's effort to secure finance will fail. His fall will be my rise, not pretty, but its a rare find. We'll see.  Yesterday I finished reading of am historic storm tossed passage from Adelaide through Bass Strait, across the Tasman Sea over Cape Reinga to New Zealand's east coast. The yacht was a heavy, Hanna style double ender & it took a beating in terrible xonditions that persisted throughout the passage. The addage that a calender is the sailor's worst enemy held true here. Options of sitting out storms in various ports, & to effect repairs, were not taken in order to make NZ on time. As it turns out, they arriv,ed way over time & were lucky to have the boat limp home.  This morning I've begun r...

As the entire planet seemingly reels from the current Idiotic American President's attempts to destabilize it, my son is watching Superbowl.  A 20-something Australian who has never played gridiron. I suspect its the side effect of the general descent of Australian culture into the monoculture established by American media interests.  How sad.  Freedom or not

"I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea ... there seemed to be something fatal in that propension of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me".               Robinson Crusoe. I've not yet clarified in my mind whether here Crusoe is saying jos life was a misery because of his "  propension of nature" or whether   this was merely   the fear of his mother & friends.  In the wake of shelling out a good deal of my savings for a boat which is pretty but too lively & wet under sail, & a greater amount on another sailboat, just two months later, both boats purchased before actually seeing them, I do wonder about my prepensities. Certainly, in my darkest minutes it does seem like a misery. But them, I fashion a repair, or make an improvement, the wind backs to come more abeam, or the sun casts a warmth, & my miseries are forgotten. Well at least until I lay my head for rest & the d...

Launched Halifax beach,ramp was excellent, width of lanes, parking, water depth & a beautiful Sandy beach alongside, a toilet. 10/10 Today's sail was unplanned other than knowing the predicted wind direction, NE up to 20knots.  Let reef from last outing remain, although the launch area was protected, beyond the headland it looked sporty. Away from the beach we four d plenty of drive, heading NNE on starboard tack. I went as far off, towards the shoal areas down the midlonr of Port Stephens, as o felt safe. On port tack we footed rapibly ESE, until PFF Nelson Head where the Coastal Patrol radio shack sits. Off there, the ebb flow bittec heads with a fimmelling NEer.it got bpumcy & harder to sail on a groove. Through the worst of the overflows, onto Shoal Bay, the wind direction swing & backed, sending the sail into fits. On a few occasions water can.e on over the gunne. I stopped mopping the bilge & stayed focused. Heading the SE corner was tricky, a stiff gusty wind...

With a number of weeks before i can go interstate to meet SELKIE I am continuing work on my 15' clinker. Today I trimmed off the starboard seat bulkheads, fitted top slats & oiled. I also oiled the starboard deck boards which I screwed together yesterday. I looks absolutely fantastic & will let the bilges breath better.  I oiled using a mix that I think SailorBarry on YouTube calls BOAT OIL(?). Its a homemade varnish come wood treatment;  qual parts of varnish, linseed oil & turps. The Premium Version includes a half portion of PINE TAR but I don't have any just now. I should order some.  Anyway I cut it short as it began to sprinkle with rain.  >> it has cleared up again.  Funny westher, I hear there are fires on The Overland Track in Tasmania's Central Highland's, & there has been lethal flooding of Townsville in North Qieensland. Anyway tjodr things are for others to bother with, I have a thwart to finish. After oiling the bright work, O...

This is my new boat! By paying a premium price I get a ready to sail craftsman built boat. She even featured on the cover of Australian Amateur Boatbuilder Magazine .  Just now though, I need to wait until the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart is over & the owner's agent (Robert Ayliffe of Straydog Boat works) returns to Adelaide where SELKIE sits waiting.  Apparently one blemish on the boat is an outboard bracket hung beside that oh so beautiful stern. That'll have to go & then, if she doesn't already have them I'll fit a pair of lanterns to her main bulkhead. The prospect of that golden glow on a winters night below, reading & sipping coffee, keeps me high.    

" Talk about choices does not apply to me. While intelligence considers options, I am somewhere lost in the wind .” Rumi Lack of choice would be a fine thing! I am so impatient right now. My bank account is bulging & I cannot find a sail boat suitable for me to go offshore with.  Yes I have an Oughtred Ness Boat, but I find her rig unmanagabl, quite often overpowered & quite a wet boat. Water squirts from the centreboard casing & sploshes over the bow. Not particularly dangerous, but for the solo sailor, a handful. More than one & a half months ssilimg right help, I've only recently tuned her for easy sailing, but right now I would not pin my dreams on her.  Oddly, my dumpy little 15' clinker, which I am presently refitting with for & aft seating & stowage, holds hope. She is quite stiff & her cuddy provides a modicum of peptection. I suspect that her new fit out, including fixed duckboards, will make her even more attractive.  I guess the issu...

I haven't yet been able to forward a deposit for SELKIE, bit i am going through a major emotional upheaval.  All at once l feel bonded to this boat, as though all the previous years of sailing lesser boats have led me to this. As though l have servedy apprenticeship, to find myself on a boat whose complexity & beauty are worthy of only one that has served their time.  At once all the reading: hiscock, Graham, pardy, stock & co. & the nameless older fellows that have laboured to create timeless timber boats. These efforts are often made without acknowledgement, the creator works to their best level, for no external reward, knowing that very few people would appreciate or understand. Its done that way because its right & its seaworthy. That on some dim corner of the ocean, during their time of need, when the sailor turns to his little boat & asks her to work to her limits, the well made boat will give generously.  I feel this as a form of transition. As ...

" Talk about choices does not apply to me. While intelligence considers options, I am somewhere lost in the wind .” Rumi Lack of choice would be a fine thing! I am so impatient right now. My bank account is bulging & I cannot find a sail boat suitable for me to go offshore with.  Yes I have an Oughtred Ness Boat, but I find her rig unmanagabl, quite often overpowered & quite a wet boat. Water squirts from the centreboard casing & sploshes over the bow. Not particularly dangerous, but for the solo sailor, a handful. More than one & a half months ssilimg right help, I've only recently tuned her for easy sailing, but right now I would not pin my dreams on her.  Oddly, my dumpy little 15' clinker, which I am presently refitting with for & aft seating & stowage, holds hope. She is quite stiff & her cuddy provides a modicum of peptection. I suspect that her new fit out, including fixed duckboards, will make her even more attractive.  I guess the issu...