NIS24: returning to home port
A Robinson Crusoe moment followed, when to our complete surprise a very fit woman made her way down the cliff to our boat. Kate Johnstone introduced herself as one of two volunteer caretakers of the island, the other her partner, Damian Hope, and made us welcome, inviting us to a barbecue on the beach that evening. Thrilled at this turn of events, and happy that the boat was secure I went exploring along the coast, while lan explored inland. I experienced the interaction with the local wild life that Flinders reported, on first landing on Kangaroo Island. Bennetts Wallabies were so unused to predators that I could just walk up to them.
lan: 'We received a forecast, from Sea Rescue Tamar for the following day of 10-15 kts east winds rising to 15kts to 20kts in the afternoon.'
BrinWarrick. the volunteer at Sea Rescue Tamar was one of the angel's wings over us on our voyage, and we really respect the network of volunteers in this organisation and others such as Volunteer Coast Guard who do so much to help sailors all around our country. One of the many highlights of the Hobart Festival was the honour we had of Brin's visit to our little ship, and the very happy hour we had with him aboard.
And with that, I can't let pass that other angel, Peter Summerton, owner builder of NIS23 Pasquin, (AABB cover story Vol 2 Issue 3 Summer 93/94 ) who tirelessly monitored our progress through Brin and relayed our circumstances to those dear to us, throughout our voyage also N1S26 Isolla Bella owner lan Mortleman from Brisbane, who helped me enormously in Hobart during the festival and again in March at the festival in SA.
lan again,"Two, by now deeply cynical, (about the weather) sailors decided to depart at 10pm that same evening so as to be home on the 'big island' before the next afternoon.
lan: 'We received a forecast, from Sea Rescue Tamar for the following day of 10-15 kts east winds rising to 15kts to 20kts in the afternoon.'
BrinWarrick. the volunteer at Sea Rescue Tamar was one of the angel's wings over us on our voyage, and we really respect the network of volunteers in this organisation and others such as Volunteer Coast Guard who do so much to help sailors all around our country. One of the many highlights of the Hobart Festival was the honour we had of Brin's visit to our little ship, and the very happy hour we had with him aboard.
And with that, I can't let pass that other angel, Peter Summerton, owner builder of NIS23 Pasquin, (AABB cover story Vol 2 Issue 3 Summer 93/94 ) who tirelessly monitored our progress through Brin and relayed our circumstances to those dear to us, throughout our voyage also N1S26 Isolla Bella owner lan Mortleman from Brisbane, who helped me enormously in Hobart during the festival and again in March at the festival in SA.
lan again,"Two, by now deeply cynical, (about the weather) sailors decided to depart at 10pm that same evening so as to be home on the 'big island' before the next afternoon.
Our cynicism was justified. As we worked up Lewis Channel at Welshpool the by now familiar 40kts of easterly was blowing. The ride into Port Welshpool was quite brisk as a result."
Francis Chichester once observed something to the effect that it's not the ocean that's dangerous;
it's what happens when the ocean stops! In ports, especially.
Sailing up into the wind as we rounded into the inner channel into Port Welshpool was pretty scatty. The beats were short and the tacking frequent, especially since the tide was ebbing fast. The self-tacking rig on the Sharpies makes easy work of this but the tide run made it hard to gain ground. The wind if anything seemed to increase, and the rickety wharfs provided no shelter.
The only soft-landing wharf in the port suited to a smaller boat, especially a yacht, serves the public ramp and the only practical approach was under motor. The pontoon was only about 25m long. The boat is seven metres. Not much room for fumbling. The outer end was backed by a very bitey rock wall. The inner, shore end was old and broken pilings, more suited to skewering than cradling a small boat.
It was one shot in the locker. After 800 miles of some of the hairiest water in the world, it seemed crazy that we were in most danger of harming the boat now.
I took a deep breath. lan already had the fenders over the side. We came in unavoidably fast. I cut the motor about 25 metres from the floating dock.
We bumped up to the dock spot on, save that the wind pressure pushing the boat against the dock caused one of the pneumatic fenders to pop. It took all our strength to push the boat against the wind far enough to slip another fender in.
But we were home.
I have just opened my emails after nearly a month of living on board Charlie Fisher, four gales, 800 incredibly varied open sea miles.
I admit to amazement at the activity on the forum, and delight! We had been buoyed through it all by the generous acts and warm wishes from so many of you, before we left, during our passage and after our homecoming. You were all wind under our wings and strength in our hearts, especially as the screeching winds built, reefed down and beating off lee shores in the inky darkness.
Francis Chichester once observed something to the effect that it's not the ocean that's dangerous;
it's what happens when the ocean stops! In ports, especially.
Sailing up into the wind as we rounded into the inner channel into Port Welshpool was pretty scatty. The beats were short and the tacking frequent, especially since the tide was ebbing fast. The self-tacking rig on the Sharpies makes easy work of this but the tide run made it hard to gain ground. The wind if anything seemed to increase, and the rickety wharfs provided no shelter.
The only soft-landing wharf in the port suited to a smaller boat, especially a yacht, serves the public ramp and the only practical approach was under motor. The pontoon was only about 25m long. The boat is seven metres. Not much room for fumbling. The outer end was backed by a very bitey rock wall. The inner, shore end was old and broken pilings, more suited to skewering than cradling a small boat.
It was one shot in the locker. After 800 miles of some of the hairiest water in the world, it seemed crazy that we were in most danger of harming the boat now.
I took a deep breath. lan already had the fenders over the side. We came in unavoidably fast. I cut the motor about 25 metres from the floating dock.
We bumped up to the dock spot on, save that the wind pressure pushing the boat against the dock caused one of the pneumatic fenders to pop. It took all our strength to push the boat against the wind far enough to slip another fender in.
But we were home.
I have just opened my emails after nearly a month of living on board Charlie Fisher, four gales, 800 incredibly varied open sea miles.
I admit to amazement at the activity on the forum, and delight! We had been buoyed through it all by the generous acts and warm wishes from so many of you, before we left, during our passage and after our homecoming. You were all wind under our wings and strength in our hearts, especially as the screeching winds built, reefed down and beating off lee shores in the inky darkness.
Delight at the proof of Randall Cooper's execution of the NIS tabernacle; their strength in open water is proven, and their convenience demonstrated when I was able to attend to a minor masthead glitch at sea by myself.
Mizzen dead ahead, nose to wind in a rolling sea I was able to lower the main mast, straighten (that's right straighten!) the Windex stalk, put the mast back up, and then get on my way again.
Without sweat.
Delight also to reflect just how good citizen Kirby, as NIS23 Scherzo owner (ieoff Heriot has titled him, has been in weaving 200 years of American workboat evolution into such a gutsy range of yachts.
We were always conscious of the big footprints we were following in, especially Bass and Flinders. Theirs was such a tiny boat, 12'/2ft, virtually no safety equipment such as we know it. none of the comforts, radio weather forecasts and modern navigation aids that we take for granted. We were also conscious of our friends (and approved NIS builders) James Frecheville and his business partner, Tim Heaney, of Frecheville Heaney Boat
Builders in Paynesville, who had been island hopping 'somewhere' behind us on our way down in their self designed and built 20' diesel clinker launch, probably the smallest displacement power boat to go to the Hobart Festival under its own power.
They made it to Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania a few days behind us.
Theirs is a considerable feat, and we hope they tell their story, inAABB soon.
Bass Strait, and the Tasmanian east coast are characterized for me by two words, majesty and menace. And, add to that, nowhere much to hide when the menace shows its teeth.
As lan pointed out as we said our goodbyes at Tullamarine, "It has been a hell of an adventure.There are a lot of lessons in this for all of us."
Especially, we repeat that this story must not he taken as a suggestion that anyone can just hop in their trailer sailer and head off to Tasmania. It can be done, but it requires careful preparation and extensive homework. The type of boat must be fundamentally good, with high self-righting and ultimate buoyancy among the attributes. It must also be set up to be very easily handled, and all of the crew should have some heavy weather open water experience as well. The boat should be reliably capable of being its own life boat. We know for sure that the Norwalk Islands Sharpie, as Charlie Fisher is constructed qualifies for that.
Being disciplined about rest is essential. Fear in adverse conditions combined with tiredness is a dangerous mix. One small breakdown in the discipline involved in maintaining a boat's rhythm can swiftly lead to a cascading series of blunders, which in turn become disaster.
Ask a lot of questions. Our critics were on the right track. They actually contributed by raising our antennae and the preparedness of the boat.
lan's conclusions: 'The Norwalk Island Sharpie is a narrow, flat bottomed, high freeboard centre hoard yacht with an unstayed cat ketch rig on it. It is broadly based on the professional fishing boats of the north-east of the United States It performed magnificently. Twenty three feet is small for lengthy adventures like this (except for masochists) but I think this little
boat is superbly capable.
Running downwind in high seas and a lot of wind, we surged through 17.5kts (by GPS). Not the slightest sign of instability. We were reefed to the third (very deep) reef in the main and no mizzen so it is what would be expected as the centre of effort is almost at the front of the boat and the centre of resistance way behind.
Mizzen dead ahead, nose to wind in a rolling sea I was able to lower the main mast, straighten (that's right straighten!) the Windex stalk, put the mast back up, and then get on my way again.
Without sweat.
Delight also to reflect just how good citizen Kirby, as NIS23 Scherzo owner (ieoff Heriot has titled him, has been in weaving 200 years of American workboat evolution into such a gutsy range of yachts.
We were always conscious of the big footprints we were following in, especially Bass and Flinders. Theirs was such a tiny boat, 12'/2ft, virtually no safety equipment such as we know it. none of the comforts, radio weather forecasts and modern navigation aids that we take for granted. We were also conscious of our friends (and approved NIS builders) James Frecheville and his business partner, Tim Heaney, of Frecheville Heaney Boat
Builders in Paynesville, who had been island hopping 'somewhere' behind us on our way down in their self designed and built 20' diesel clinker launch, probably the smallest displacement power boat to go to the Hobart Festival under its own power.
They made it to Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania a few days behind us.
Theirs is a considerable feat, and we hope they tell their story, inAABB soon.
Bass Strait, and the Tasmanian east coast are characterized for me by two words, majesty and menace. And, add to that, nowhere much to hide when the menace shows its teeth.
As lan pointed out as we said our goodbyes at Tullamarine, "It has been a hell of an adventure.There are a lot of lessons in this for all of us."
Especially, we repeat that this story must not he taken as a suggestion that anyone can just hop in their trailer sailer and head off to Tasmania. It can be done, but it requires careful preparation and extensive homework. The type of boat must be fundamentally good, with high self-righting and ultimate buoyancy among the attributes. It must also be set up to be very easily handled, and all of the crew should have some heavy weather open water experience as well. The boat should be reliably capable of being its own life boat. We know for sure that the Norwalk Islands Sharpie, as Charlie Fisher is constructed qualifies for that.
Being disciplined about rest is essential. Fear in adverse conditions combined with tiredness is a dangerous mix. One small breakdown in the discipline involved in maintaining a boat's rhythm can swiftly lead to a cascading series of blunders, which in turn become disaster.
Ask a lot of questions. Our critics were on the right track. They actually contributed by raising our antennae and the preparedness of the boat.
lan's conclusions: 'The Norwalk Island Sharpie is a narrow, flat bottomed, high freeboard centre hoard yacht with an unstayed cat ketch rig on it. It is broadly based on the professional fishing boats of the north-east of the United States It performed magnificently. Twenty three feet is small for lengthy adventures like this (except for masochists) but I think this little
boat is superbly capable.
Running downwind in high seas and a lot of wind, we surged through 17.5kts (by GPS). Not the slightest sign of instability. We were reefed to the third (very deep) reef in the main and no mizzen so it is what would be expected as the centre of effort is almost at the front of the boat and the centre of resistance way behind.
It showed no signs of pounding in any of the seas we encountered. In fact, its motion was relatively comfortable (as comfortable as you can be in 35kts of wind and the two to three metre seas generated by six hours of wind and going to windward at that). It was a lot dryer on deck than might be expected. I initially asked, where is the dodger. Now I don't think it needs one.
It reliably self steered to windward in just about any conditions. The hull shape and lack of drag from rigging yields an extremely easily driven boat, needing only a very small amount of sail once the wind pipes.
Charlie Fisher is constructed from Gaboon plywood, coated with three coats of Bote-Cote on every side and surface and then glued together with Bote-Cote and Fillet and Glue Filler. It was built about 18 years ago. Apart from cleats and similar fittings it has no screws, holts or nails in it, it is entirely held together by Bote-Cote. It is a sound as the day it was built. I could see no signs of water ingress to any of the timber. The interior was dry to a degree 1 have never experienced in an ocean going boat, and apart from one splash, no water at all found its way down below.
Charlie Fisher's undersides are protected with Cop-R-Bote long life antifoul. When we took it out of the water at Port Welshpool after it had spent a month travelling to Hobart and back, the only fouling was a very slight bacterial slime. As expected, Cop-R-Bote also stands up very well to coming on and off trailers, being left to dry out of the water for weeks or months and occasional deliberate beachings and less deliberate groundings.'
As the last gale flung us up the channel towards those bejagulant wharves in Port Welshpool, I had the strongest sense that all of you who encouraged and contributed to this voyage were with us, and that Commodore Munroe, and his fishy smelling, oil skinned mates were hiked out in some old Sharpie in the sky, looking down approvingly on the tidy completion of our voyage and the excellence of Bruce Kirby's creation.
It reliably self steered to windward in just about any conditions. The hull shape and lack of drag from rigging yields an extremely easily driven boat, needing only a very small amount of sail once the wind pipes.
Charlie Fisher is constructed from Gaboon plywood, coated with three coats of Bote-Cote on every side and surface and then glued together with Bote-Cote and Fillet and Glue Filler. It was built about 18 years ago. Apart from cleats and similar fittings it has no screws, holts or nails in it, it is entirely held together by Bote-Cote. It is a sound as the day it was built. I could see no signs of water ingress to any of the timber. The interior was dry to a degree 1 have never experienced in an ocean going boat, and apart from one splash, no water at all found its way down below.
Charlie Fisher's undersides are protected with Cop-R-Bote long life antifoul. When we took it out of the water at Port Welshpool after it had spent a month travelling to Hobart and back, the only fouling was a very slight bacterial slime. As expected, Cop-R-Bote also stands up very well to coming on and off trailers, being left to dry out of the water for weeks or months and occasional deliberate beachings and less deliberate groundings.'
As the last gale flung us up the channel towards those bejagulant wharves in Port Welshpool, I had the strongest sense that all of you who encouraged and contributed to this voyage were with us, and that Commodore Munroe, and his fishy smelling, oil skinned mates were hiked out in some old Sharpie in the sky, looking down approvingly on the tidy completion of our voyage and the excellence of Bruce Kirby's creation.
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