Bundaberg to Brisbane Three and a Half Days.

Friday 4/12/2020.
Apache is relaunched after a blow off, fresh coat of Carboline Sea Barrier 3000 (good as Altex No 5 and a fair bit less expensive) and application of Prop Speed (previous was Velox and definitely not reccommended by me) and goes to marina berth at Bundaberg Port Marina.
I have to say that the guys there and the marina management are excellent and value for money is hard to beat.

Saturday 5/12/2020.
Apache departs Burnett Heads at 5 am with the plan being to reach the first way point, Hervey Bay fairway mark 50 miles away at 5 knots by 3 pm giving us another 3 to 4 hours to get well down into the straits before dark. The wind being northerly and the Yanmar 2 QM15 being capable of pushing us along at 6 knots, we did considerably better than as planned.
Well down into the straits coming past Big Woody Island we decided to hoist the Booster Sail, it being an assymetrical wire luffed sail, on the port side for a starboard reach. The wind was 15 to 18 so we are going to introduce some horse power to the boat.
Yours truly did not get it quite right and there was a twist or two in the sail so bring it down and try again.

Second hoist got the head to about 6 foot short of the mast head where it jammed but the sail filled, the boat took off and was blowing off the 10 metre catermaran that had come up to us big time. Not bad for a little old Lotus 9.2 fixed keel trailer sailer as one contributor here chooses to describe it.

We have to pull it down again but no, she won't come down, the hallyard is jammed both up and down. We are coming past the bottom end of Big Woody Is. and turn to stbd to head up to the anchorage thereby depowering the sail but threatening to flap itself to shreds. We get to anchor and the 38 yo new owner of the boat says that I the 70 yo former owner has to haul him up the mast in the bosuns chair with a second hallyard to put on the head of the sail so we can get it down.

Yeah right!! Not quite heart attack material but heading that way. Up he goes, reattaches, sail down and he ties the jammed halllyard to the cap shroud and I smoothly lower him down.

What had happened with the hallyard is that with the horse power it took the hallyard rode to the edge of the sheave of the block, bent the plastic cheek and jammed in between possibly because it was not a swivel block. I now think that spinnaker hallyard blocks need to be swivelled and have metal cheeks.

I was a bit too busy to be taking pics so don't anybody say "pics or it did not happen" but this a pic going down Hervey Bay.





Sunday 6/12/2020

As we all know, time and tide wait for no man. The high tide we needed to transit the shallowest part of the straits at Sheridan Flats was around midday so we had a leiserely morning coffee and breakfast before weighing anchor and a chicken sandwich each for lunch as we passed the shallows.

Many people get freaked out when the Great Sandy Straits are mentioned. I have been through them a several times now, twice with a 2.2 metre draught and I assure you it is not a big deal. It is the Great SANDY Straits, not the Great ROCKY Straits. At worst if you bottom out you will lose a bit of antifoul. It is an amazing playground for yachts and offers wide sailing areas with nothing more than chop.

We had missed the tide for the Wide Bay bar unless we wanted to go out at 2 am so I suggested to the captain we could anchor on the western side of Wide Bay Harbor, have a leisurely morning and head out over the bar around 1 pm. It was blowing about 25 north and he said it is not going to be comfortable so we decided to go down to Tin Can Bay.



That was a real good move. We tied up on the end of the finger about 4 pm and the skipper raced up to the marina office negotiated an emergency overnight stay on third party insurance, not full comprehencive they normally require.
We went to the TCB Country Club and had a drinks and a fantastic dinner. At TCB forget the Marina Bar and Grill and the pub. Just call the Country Club and they will send the courtesy bus.

Monday 7/12/2020

There was no rush to get up to the passage and the bar as high tide was 1.30 pm but we left the marina at 7 punching a 20 to 25 knot northerly arriving at the passage about 10. We had time to kill so we headed back up the strait intending to do that for an hour and back down for an hour to arrive at the passage a bit before high tide and cross the bar on a rising tide.
All was going well, we are approaching the passage and you wouldn't believe it, the engine overheat alarm goes off. Bloody hell!!!
Skipper asks the engineer/navigator if it can be fixed and how long. Response was yes and about an hour and keep heading down to TCB.
Fortunately had three rubber impellers in the drawer, two used and one new which I fitted and then we went to the bar.

I have been across the WBB at least 4 times now and it is not something to take casually. If you intend crossing in or out call Coast Guard Tin Can Bay to get the latest way pionts.

Headed for the bar with a sail up as recommended by my great friend MorningBird.



During this voyage I used Navionics on a 9 inch tablet and the Garmin DV 75 I fitted to the boat. I really cannot fault either of them. They are computers but only as good as the data input.
The Garmin is plotter AND sounder and in the pics you will see that in each corner gives you essential information. The Navionics tablet is great but lacks sounder input unless you have a WiFi sounder module. Using Navionics on the tablet really sucks it's battery power so you need to keep it charged.

We were getting really good speed out of the little Lotus 9.2. Have a look at these pics.









This Benetau or whatever it is came across the bar just after us and we had her in sight all the way down to Bribie Island.




The wind being northerly and the forecast a fresh southerly we decided to bypass Mooloolaba and make for anchorage in Bribie Passage via Skirmish Passage which we did after passing on the edge of the storm that hit Bribie that night. Lightning all around and the thought was that if one of them hit us we were fried. Fortunately it did not happen. We tossed the anchor on the edge of the shallows and let her hang back. The sand holding is not real good in Bribie Passage.

Tuesday 8/12/2020

We only had 20 odd miles to do to reach the final destination of this voyage which was the Wynum-Manly Yacht Club Marina so it was straight across Moreton Bay, inside Mud Island, outside Saint Helena Island and Green Island and into the marina.

It was a really hard thing to sell this yacht. She is number 7 and it took me 40 years to find the best yacht I could ever be the custodian of.
Here is a quick tour of the fair "APACHE".












I have not given up on sailing. I have given up on being a custodian of yachts. I am now an OPB sailor.

Her departure from my life has left a hole in my heart which my Spyder now fills.

Good story mate. Sorry to see the little Lotus leave you but that is life. Havefun still has Havefun, the only one left from 2014 when we all went sailing together.

Excellent story Cisco, I enjoyed reading it. Wow, you were rocketing along there at times, what a nice boat, the new owner must be chuffed. Thanks for sharing this with us and have fun with the Spyder!

Thank you all for your positive comments. Though it was a delivery and handing over custody of the yacht I really did enjoy the trip.

@ BlueMoon. Bundy to Hervey Bay fairway mark is a matter of just get there quick as you can with tides not a consideration. Tide is only of concern once you are well into the GSS where it can run at 3 to 4 knots. If you bottom on an outgoing you will probably be there for the next 6 hours.

@ MorningBird. Saw a Northshore 33 in Manly marina and thought that is a good substantial yacht to be going offshore with. If there is a LHI trip in the wind, be sure to let me know.

@ Wavesong. Yes I did love her and I derived great satisfaction bringing her up to scratch but unfortunately not much sailing satisfaction in the 6 years she was mine. C'est la vie. The Spyder is something to fill the hole in my heart that Apache left and she is doing that well ATM and she even got me a speeding ticket within 3 hours of driving her.
The bench tops are a product called Wall Art which is wet area panel similar to Lamipanel. I had a fair bit of offcuts left over from a bathroom reno and at the price you pay I was not going to chuck it.

@ 2bish. Glad you enjoyed it. The speed readout actually hit 9 knots a couple of times but I suspect it may have been the GPS signal catching up with itself. I took a couple of short vids of the bow wave and looking aft while sailing and tried to upload them to Youtube but got the "Ooops, something went wrong message"

@ garymalmgren. Thanks for that offer. There are one or two in the wrecking yards in Brisbane. What I do want is a front alloy wheel to replace the yellow spare in the trunk that looks like it came off a Citreon C2. I will not be seen ever driving with that wheel on the car. If something does come up I will certainly message you.

I have certainly not given up on sailing and have two great mates here in Bundy who have yachts. One with an Adams 31 and Wander66 who I will be assisting on Friday when his Carter 33 gets wet again.

Cheers.

Thanks for the write up. Your jammed halyard experience is very informative, never thought about it happening before and knowing how you solved the problem fills another gap in my knowledge.

I had exactly the same issue second time I flew the assy. even though the old ronstan metal cheek block was shackled to a saddle on the mast. I put it down to an old block with worn sheave and new dyneema halyard.
Was easy for me to lower mast and fix.
I spoke to Tom at Ronstan and he came up with following suggestion which has worked perfectly on a 20 footer.
We have a new block called RF35109HL. I use it for the masthead kite block on my i14 and it is brilliant. You could just lash it to the saddle (make sure you have sufficient strength in the lashing). I wouldn't lash it on bar-tight or it won't be able to move side to side as needed-if you leave a small (approx. 5mm) gap between the block and the saddle that should put enough flexibility in the lashing."