My daughter wanted to go sailing again for her 16th birthday, so we took her and 15 of her friends over to the sandhills at Moreton Island for a day trip. Even leaving at 10am (getting 16yr olds to wake up early seems amazingly difficult) , we still had a good few hours on the anchor before the 3pm departure to get back before light faded. The kids had a great time just mucking around swimming, diving off the boat and playing around in the shallows with rays flitting about everywhere.


The sail home was near perfect, 15-20 knots and a broad reach,, so we had 5 of them taking turns at helming the boat home.
Whilst I love sailing, the feeling watching these kids go from all timid and a bit nervous, then as they started to get the hang of it, the smiles started appearing and by the end of it they were almost bursting with pride as they handed over the wheel, that was something special.
Good times, and lovely kids, it made the day a pleasure not a chore.

Bananabender said..

shaggybaxter said..
My daughter wanted to go sailing again for her 16th birthday, so we took her and 15 of her friends over to the sandhills at Moreton Island for a day trip. Even leaving at 10am (getting 16yr olds to wake up early seems amazingly difficult) , we still had a good few hours on the anchor before the 3pm departure to get back before light faded. The kids had a great time just mucking around swimming, diving off the boat and playing around in the shallows with rays flitting about everywhere.


The sail home was near perfect, 15-20 knots and a broad reach,, so we had 5 of them taking turns at helming the boat home.
Whilst I love sailing, the feeling watching these kids go from all timid and a bit nervous, then as they started to get the hang of it, the smiles started appearing and by the end of it they were almost bursting with pride as they handed over the wheel, that was something special.
Good times, and lovely kids, it made the day a pleasure not a chore.

That would be an unbelievable blast for the kids.
Good on you.

Thanks BB, I hope we're not a bad influence...thread drift..we were following a Beneteau 473 out when we left the sandhills. Winds were lighter near the shore, say 12's, the Benny's got fulls sails up, and she's just trucking on the beat. We were a bit heavy and dirty, but this 473 is dialled up nicely and holding her lead as we get to the west cardinal where you can ease sheets onto a reach.
16 yr old Jack is on the helm, my good friend's coaching him, and I'm tweaking sheets and traveller, and we're only slooowly pulling the Benny in. My primal brain starts whispering "When two boats are both sailing in the same direction ...."

We were only using main and the jib, but that's by the by, I'm no longer listening to the chatter around me, I'm seriously now getting into the trim. The barber hauler position is coming in and down to stop the top of the jib leach flapping, I'm twisting off the main a bit to match the jib and then traveller up to compensate for the twist, And soo sloowly we're pulliing her in.
???
This is a nice big heavy 473, and they're sailing this thing hot. She's heeled nicely and planted there like a rock, trim is looking good and I have a quick grin at the sight of their upper jib leach flapping too. The wind started to pick up and that did the trick, and we pulled away as our course diverged heading a different way home.
I'm enjoying just watching her, and as the sounds on the boat start returning to my conscious I hear my mate saying to 16 yr old Jack "That's really good, now see where they are? Remember, when two boats are both sailing in the same direction, now that's a race"



Edit: I checked on AIS, the boats name was Jack Tar. Man they were sailing that girl well.

Errr, nowhere for the next few day at least. Been a while since I saw this type of forecast.....
Be safe out there, this weekend is not the time to be stooging about in sailboats in SE Qld.

lydia said..

shaggybaxter said..
Errr, nowhere for the next few day at least. Been a while since I saw this type of forecast.....
Be safe out there, this weekend is not the time to be stooging about in sailboats in SE Qld.

Shaggy, I don't know about that, perfect Westcoaster preparation for a pogo.
You have my number.

Lydia, I couldn't do that to you straight after you wallowing in the laid back and chilled environs of the WB festival...

shaggybaxter said..

lydia said..

shaggybaxter said..
Errr, nowhere for the next few day at least. Been a while since I saw this type of forecast.....
Be safe out there, this weekend is not the time to be stooging about in sailboats in SE Qld.

Shaggy, I don't know about that, perfect Westcoaster preparation for a pogo.
You have my number.

Lydia, I couldn't do that to you straight after you wallowing in the laid back and chilled environs of the WB festival...

we are taking pagan out sunday if the combined clubs is cancelled then for a training run for Gladstone

Ramona said..

I understand why the brown pants is there on that chart but why is the red down low like that? Usually have red before selecting brown pants!

Because originally Seabreeze was a sailboarding site and red means it was crap for windsurfing and it went all the way to green which was heaven for the sailboarders, but I guess even they have the brown pants days too, hence the brown bits.

You can reverse the colours for sailing on the weather page under 'Help'

Ramona said..

Because originally Seabreeze was a sailboarding site and red means it was crap for windsurfing and it went all the way to green which was heaven for the sailboarders, but I guess even they have the brown pants days too, hence the brown bits.

You can reverse the colours for sailing on the weather page under 'Help'

Obviously, but the colours selected are for brown as the windy day and time to wear your brown pants. But usually you have red leading into brown. In this graph it shows extremes at both ends of the scale!

In this graph it shows extremes at both ends of the scale! No it is not showing extremes because in this instance red means little or no wind whereas brown still means what it has always meant. If you look at the graph as a sailboarder it makes perfect sense, whereas looking at it like a sailor the colours are arse about face.

Glad you enjoyed the place termite, did you get to either of the two Indian restaurants? , both do good value $10 curries for lunch.
I saw you aboard, but didn't want to intrude as you were reading a book or something downstairs, i was going to ask you what design is your boat? ,a very very fine looking vessel indeed and am absolute credit to you for keeping her looking fantastic,cheers

Thanks BlueMoon and theselkie! Unfortunately I didn't get to the curries but had lunch at the Oasis and it was outstanding. Tempted to sail back just for the surf and turf. Cheers Bill

took pagan out for a sail over to mud and back on sunday in left over breeze from cyclone pre Gladstone training better than a safety audit anyday

Donk107 said..
Entered the Sailmaster in the Killala Bay race yesterday and had a great afternoons sailing on the Huon with a nice sea breeze coming in to carry us back up the river under spinnaker from Killala Bay to the finish line

It was a fairly old fleet racing but it was good fun and we managed to cross the line first and came in second on handicap so all in all it was a good day on the water

Last week we raced in the combined series of boats from from Port Huon and Cygnet and with a mixed bag of 14 boats it was a bit of a handicappers nightmare but only 5 (we were one of these) of the 14 boats sailed the correct course (not really the fault of the sailors) the results for this race was canned but hopefully there were some lessons learnt to prevent this happening again next season

We have also been twilighting her and competing against another Sailmaster and HG02's old Driftwood

I like the photo of the two Sailmasters side by side where it looks like one boat with 2 masts with Driftwood close behind and a good one of Driftwood by herself as well

Regards Don

Fantastic photos Don, its great to see a good mix of different boats in the fleet! It looks like you had a prize for who could carry the most amount of sail area !
That's a great shot of the two Sailmaster's , I was scratching my head over that one till I reread your post.

I assume you're sail number 371? Thanks for the pics btw, it's always good for me to see how other people set up their trim. Funny story, I've been particularly interested in optimising my headsail trim for deep running of late, and thanks to a mate l found out last week I've been trimming the headsail completely wrong !
I had a guru trimmer friend come out last week and show me how he trims for deep VMG running without a spinnaker . We were sailing really deep with just headsail and main in about 10-12 knots and I had a go at setting up the trim first. I had eased the headsail till the telltales were almost working which is my normal setup for near ddw, and moved the barber haulers out to the rail. Guru trimmer waits till I'm finished and politely asks if he could have a go, of course is the answer.
He proceeds to set it up the barber haulers at double the height I had (height means they come forward) for much more leach tension and minimal foot tension, and then sheeted on a lot more than I ever had before pronouncing himself satisfied. I look at the telltales and they're all hanging down, no movement at all.
???
I query him as to what/how/why (I'm a serial pest when it comes to asking questions) and he told me he was setting the head of the sail to be catching the wind and always drawing, so the barber haulers had to come forward a lot and the jib sheet came on a lot. I had so much ease on the jib chasing the telltales that the head was twisted off and not doing anything at all.
I took it all in, then snuck below and checked the polar performance. For this wind strength and angle I have really struggled to achieve better than 90%. With the new trim we were averaging 105%. Well, bugger me.
So the lesson for me was to keep the head of the jib working all the time, and ignore the telltales. This is one of those things that I am sure everyone would laugh at me for not knowing, but I'm happy to admit when I'm wrong, and it's always good for a laugh amongst the crew that the skipper has been calling the wrong trim for ages!
So thanks for sharing Don, I always get a kick out of looking at other boats sailing!
SB

shaggybaxter said..

boty said..
took pagan out for a sail over to mud and back on sunday in left over breeze from cyclone pre Gladstone training better than a safety audit anyday

Boty, did you get to actually use a reef this time?
I was soo tempted to join you yesterday, but my muffler has developed a pinhole leak that is spraying salt water inside the boat, so I opted to worked on removing that instead.
Looks like great fun!
Cheers,
SB

needed a reef we are usualy good for 35 without but it was constant 30 with 40 solid sustained in the gusts she handled well though we could do with another cuningham eye in the main as we couldn't get enough luff tension had intended to go to sandhills for a swim but it was so wet going to weather went back to qcyc for lunch and a beer

Hi Shaggy

The Manitou 32 had every sail in the locker up and was flying around the course in a decent breeze and actually ended up winning on handicap in the fleet of 4 boats

I asked one of the crew afterwards about leaving the head sail up while flying the spinnaker and he said they were both drawing her along and I guess it filled in the gap between the bottom of the spinnaker and the deck but it looks a bit busy

Between us and the Cygnet club who we occasionally race with we have a wide range of boats on the water and it is a bit of a lottery as to which boat the conditions on the day will suit

It is interesting what you say regarding the head sail trim and we often fiddle with things when the breeze is steady searching for a bit more boat speed and occasionally it doesn't go the way you assume it should

I downloaded a heap of photo's taken during the race series by the race officials on to my lap top the other night and as you say it is interesting looking at the different boats and what their sails are doing

Regards Don

riverider said..
Hi Don, that spinnaker is off our old boat, recognised the colours, but the number gave it away, she was 5 when we sailed in JOG, Swanson 27 that we sold 10 years ago, owned for 35, the Pickers sails were original, then we went to Norths, so that's one old sail, but looks good.
derwentboats.com.au/derwent/yachts-for-sale/used/sail-monohulls/swanson-27-great-sea-boats-many-upgrades/223011/

Hi Riverider

That is a coincidence and it is good to know the history of it

The spinnaker is still ok but is fairly light so I don't know how it would go in a decent breeze

Did it always have the blank blue panel in the middle or has it been altered at some stage

The sail was on the boat when we bought her about 4 years ago from a widow in Hobart and at the time she was named Addiction and was berthed at the DSS

Do you ever remember sailing against her

Regards Don

Gravy7 said..
A drone was spotted tracking the fleet in a recent twilight race at Woody Point YC on Pittwater. Here is their take on the race:

beautiful spot to sail