Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2020 i Cruising Helmsman

WESCOM Signal and Rescue, a global supplier of marine distress signals, urges businesses to order pyrotechnic products ahead of the expiry dates, following the updated guidance of certification of goods for seafarers released by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), in response to the ongoing COVID-19 situation. The firm, which has been manufacturing pyrotechnics for more than 100 years, stresses the importance of forward planning for the ordering of pyrotechnics and other dated, mandated items, to mitigate any possible supply delays in the future. Keith Bradford, product and customer service manager for WesCom Signal and Rescue, adds, “we do not currently foresee any problems with availability, but due to the unknown climate we are all in, we strongly recommend working with customers to replace earlier than originally planned. Health and safety…

Many thanks to the staff in the microfilm department at the State Library of Queensland. Also a big debt of gratitude to Jonathan and Jo Snell, owners and publishers of The Norfolk Islander. To Don and Sue Brian, who provided me with a wealth of information from their research into the history of Norfolk Island shipwrecks. To Robert Westwood, aka‘Possum’, a Norfolk Islander who kindly sent me some great photos of Isis and Emily Bay. Last but not least, the late Frank Clune whose book ‘The Norfolk Island Story’ I used for fact checking and photographs. This short story is dedicated to my family with a big thanks to Claire for her suggestions and typing skills.…

THERE is a detour from the Great Sandy Straits/Fraser Island cruising grounds that few yachties realise. In 2007 the skipper of Truant, on a whim, decided to take this detour and meandered the 20 nautical miles up the Mary River from River Heads to Maryborough. This small, friendly and pretty marina is now, three years later and along with a couple of extra crew members, Truant’s semi-permanent home port, when not out cruising. The Mary River Marina has a long and colourful history and is now owned and operated by the second and third generations of the Foord family. Nev and Bev were themselves cruising yachties with many offshore and coastal nautical miles under the keel of their sailing vessel Doon Eagle. Back in 1992 they saw the marina advertised…

SAILORS caught mid-circumnavigation by the deadly Covid 19 pandemic have been obliged to remain in port wherever they happen to be when countries closed their borders. Claiming ‘safe haven’ or force majeur is trumped by a country’s need to protect its citizens in a pandemic such as this. All international sailors are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and must act according to the laws of the country where they were when borders closed. On the bright side, an active cruising boat is something of a survival capsule, perhaps not a bad place in which to be quarantined, providing there are enough food stores on board. There may also be a generator, solar panels, wind generator and water maker, all the basics that would make a prepper proud. Going west around…

“SO where have you sailed from?” “France.” “On this boat?!” Our new neighbours look surprised, we are invited for sundowners. Indeed, a 25 footer is not the size of a sailing boat one would expect to sail to Australia from overseas. I remember seeing her myself for the first time at the end of the line in Micalvi Yacht Club, L'Envol was half the size of her neighbours. Never had I seen a boat so small venture into the furious fifties. At the time, I used to work at the Cape Horn Tourist Information in Puerto Williams, Chile. Christophe, like everyone else, was a stranger asking for hiking advice on the Navarino Island. He had single-handed L'Envol across the Atlantic to Brazil and then down the coasts of Uruguay and…

TRANSIT POINT T1 ‘Mares tail’ clouds herald the approach. These wispy cirrus clouds are the outflow at the top of the system, 10,000 metres high. They can also create a ‘ring’ around the sun. Wind is light and backing. Barometer falling. TRANSIT POINT T.2 Overcast at altitude increasing, Ring around the moon and sun, which is refraction through ice crystals in the high stratus and cirrus clouds. Bar falling, temperature and humidity rising. Possibly some drizzly precipitation. TRANSIT POINT T.3 Warm with broken cloud, bar steady, light wind tending to increase and an unsettled feel to the weather. Warm moist air flows into the warm sector and rides up the back of the slowly advancing cold air left over from the early stages of the ‘wave’ formation. See diagram 3a.…

EXPERIENCING what can only be described as a man’s ‘young-life crisis’, twenty-one year old Andrew Godfrey puzzled over his latest dilemma: “what should I do with my life?” The path should have been obvious. A recent graduate with his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, a career in water treatment for industrial power plants awaited him. But he said to his girlfriend of just one year, which is me: “I need a new goal.” I am wrapping Christmas presents as snow begins to fall in our hometown, the former Winter Olympic venue Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 1,000 miles away from any ocean. I nod. “Okay, like what?” “I need something that will inspire me, something to keep my energy up, keep me purpose driven….” I nod more, “Okay, okay….”…

Multihull Solutions has launched a virtual boat show allowing buyers to inspect its large range of new and preowned range of catamarans and trimarans on its website. The concept was created in response to the restrictions boat buyers have experienced inspecting boats following the postponement or cancellation of major boat shows due to the Covid-19 crisis. While the Multihull Solutions out-of-water boat show display on the Gold Coast has remained open, visitors have been limited to inspecting boats by appointment only and many clients have been unable to travel to see the boats in person. The new Multihull Solutions virtual boat show features full interactive walk-through facilities of its power and sail catamarans allowing clients to still inspect boats of interest from the safety of their own homes. “We worked…

COVID CHAOS The use of the word ‘unprecedented’ in so many different media stories is, quite frankly, unprecedented. As governments around the world struggle to cope with the continuing crisis, the confusion tends to filter down to the average citizen in so many ways. Including those who wish to go sailing. The Boating Industry Association is, naturally, keen to see everyone back out on the water; so it means they are trying hard to keep up with each jurisdiction’s ruling on what is allowed to happen and what is not. Even they are confused. By the time you read this it may have settled down somewhat but, way back in late May, this article was popular reading. Of course this confusion is not restricted to sailors. It was also prevalent…

SURVEY SAYS Hi, I have recently bought a boat and I got it surveyed by a person who claimed to be a boat surveyor. What I now know about boats and boat surveyors in Australia is downright scary, dangerous and disgusting. Yet, over the past ten years of my subscription with you guys, I don't ever recall reading about surveyors getting things wrong and I mean dangerously wrong, in any of your articles; however, I’m happy to be proven wrong. My enquiries with the Australian Institute of Marine Surveyors and the Australian Arm of the Internal Marine Surveyors has yielded some scary f#*king stories (I do apologise for my language, however, the English vernacular only covers so many levels before adjectives need to be incorporated) about boaters being issued with…

I had not been in control of a boat since I was 16 years old. Sure, that is not exactly true. We hired a tinny on the Sunshine Coast with the view to catching a fish. Fortunately, no fish were harmed in the practicality of that adventure. We also bought a secondhand kayak and put it on our jetty. “Have a look at our new boat,” I would say to anybody who dropped by. “It’s the green one.” They were always disappointed. I traded the kayak about a year later for a mountain bike. That remains largely unused too. But, one day it occurred to me that the thing that I had been looking for was sailing. I remember waking up one morning and just knew. Funny thing was that…

WAY back in 1984 I reviewed an Arends 33 for Cruising Helmsman. Designed by Ron Swanson, this fin keel and separate rudder cruising yacht was powered by a tiny, four cylinder, tractor-based diesel that was virtually vibration free and effortlessly powered the 5.8 tonne 33. Unfortunately that diesel was discontinued in 2000, so what would be a suitable repower engine for a boat like the 33? Certainly, after having four cylinders, a three cylinder engine just would not compare and the replacement engine for that four cylinder engine now has three cylinders. This leaves the Kubota-based, Nanni Diesel N4.38, one of the world’s smallest four cylinder marine diesel engines. Compared to the four cylinder engine in the 33, it develops 21 per cent more power at 3000 revolutions per minute…

Summarised from The Courier’s “Coronavirus: The differences between coronavirus, COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-2 explained, MARCH 19 2020 by Jolyon Attwooll. Although the word ‘coronavirus’ is often used as a blanket term, the term is frequently used loosely. Here is a run-down of the differences as explained by the World Health Organisation. Coronavirus is the name for a family of viruses that also include the common cold. Many strains of coronavirus are mild and have been known about for some time, while others are more severe, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Both of which were new this century, with SARS affecting Asia in 2003, and MERS first identified in 2012. The particular strain that has caused such global disruption this year is new to…

THE weather picture in temperate latitudes can get very messy. Between the southern edge of the sub-tropical ridge (STR) and about 60 degrees south there are several major drivers of local weather locked in a contest for dominance. There is the STR itself, moving north and south and varying in intensity. To the south is the belt of infamous westerlies, called the southern annular mode (SAM), weaving about and pulsating in intensity and, to the south of the westerlies, the polar front (PF) with its dramatic wind shear. The principal weather feature in this area of significance to the cruising sailor is the frontal depression (FD). These regularly spin off the PF, move in a characteristic way, have an identifiable life-cycle and are frequent enough to be a regular feature…

Humanitarian group Sea Mercy has landed its first container of essential supplies for water treatment, shelter and clean up following the devastation caused by Category 5 Cyclone Harold. Sea Mercy responded to Vanuatu’s needs, post-Cyclone Pam, five years ago and used over 60 Sea Mercy disaster response vessels to respond to Fiji’s Cyclone Winston in 2016. Sea Mercy has once again mobilised in response to Harold, utilising precious local knowledge gained from those two earlier missions. Working locally, Sea Mercy Fiji’s President Nigel Skeggs quickly assembled a container full of desalination units, water containers, tarps and tents for shelter and tools for clean-up and rebuild. “Thanks to lessons learnt from Cyclones’ Pam and Winston, we have a warehouse in Fiji with portable desalination units, water filters, tents, and tools ready…

AN Australian designed green-shipping solution has won the confidence of researchers tasked with determining how the annual consumption of 1,250,000 litres of petrol used by small boats in the Marshall Island archipelago can be reduced. The Harryproa mini cargo ferry (MCF), designed by Queensland company Harryproa, delivers ease of construction and operation, low cost, along with a high payload. The MCF is exclusively sail-powered, producing a zero emissions craft for lagoon and coastal use. In keeping with traditional Marshallese craft, the MCF carries a Polynesian rig and is steered by oar. Simplicity of construction exemplifies the versatility of the MCF. The hulls and beams are built from half sheets of plywood, fibreglass cloth and epoxy resin. There is one simple curve to cut and no need to use power tools,…

THE year is 1962, with fine sunny weather favouring the yacht marina at Rushcutters Bay in Sydney. My crewmate Ricky and I were working on our new home, the thirty-two feet yacht Isis, tied up in her usual berth. I say ‘new home’, because we both jumped ship from the around-the-world yacht Diana, some weeks previously and accepted crew positions on Isis. DIANA V ISIS Crewing on the yacht Diana turned out to be somewhat of an ordeal under the captaincy of Old Etonian, Norman Young. Faulty gear and atrocious weather combined to give Diana the dubious honour of the longest ever Tasman crossing: thirty-one days, including a brief stopover at Lord Howe Island for emergency repairs. But that is another story. Our new skipper was the grandly-named Walter Layfeyette…

PROTECT FROM CHAFE AND KNOCKS Following the introduction of 3Ms VHB adhesive system, sales of the anti-chafe, stainless steel ‘Wear and tear pads’ have sold over 12,000 pads worldwide. Wear and tear pads are guaranteed to never wear through. Principal applications are on cockpit coamings, cabin tops and gunwales, but recently applications within the galley area have been added. The pads show as shiny, attractive stainless steel, so they not only protect the substrate from damage, they also conceal unsightly existing damage. The ‘pads’ comprise ultra-thin marine grade stainless steel ‘shims’ in two standard sizes: 50mm x 150mm and 50mm x 225mm (2” x 6” and 2” x 9”). Fitting is straightforward. Just clean the surface thoroughly, remove the backing sheet from the pad and then place it carefully in…

LITTLE JOBS WORTH DOING Next time you are on the boat wondering how to fill in a few minutes, grab a bottle of 3-in-1 oil or other light lubricant and apply a drop to every hinge aboard. Down below, the domestic-type brass hinges used on many lockers are prone to seizing and then breaking. Even the chrome bronze marine hinges on external hatches and locker lids benefit from regular maintenance. If the hinge is already corroded, as in the photo, use something like WD40 first. It stinks, but will initially do a better job of freeing the hinge. Then it will dry out. Once the hinge is working properly, remember to oil it too. Another job that prevents problems is cleaning out the filters in the shower sump. There should…

THE other day we were chatting with the owner of a boat that had just moved to our dock. “I’ll just be here a couple of days. The boat’s been on the hardstand for 18 months and I’ve just come back to get going on the rest of my circumnavigation” he said. “Hmm” we said. “How is your engine and generator after such a long haul out?” we asked. Well, it was not good. There were billowing clouds of smoke pouring out his boat’s exhaust, there were the clanking sounds of an unhappy engine trying to turn over and, eventually, lots of mechanics rushing to the scene. While the owner had been back home, his boat had sat in the yard with no preventative measures applied or any care given…

WELL over thirty years ago, my soon wife-to-be Janet seemed slightly shocked by my lack of hygiene level when she first came aboard my boat in Gosport, UK. After feeding her a great British B&E breakfast, I then washed up: in saltwater and just wiping out my frying pan with paper towel. I saw a certain look on her face: surely she must know that you must never wash a good frying pan out, everyone knows that! It particularly hurt as I had spent some time stowing gear, such as liveaboard bits like a small television, fan heater etc. Then cleaning the boat, washing off the decks, cleaning slightly down below while making her ready for sea. This frypan was not at all special by today’s standards. Quite cheap, made…