AWBF (Hobart, 6-9 Feb 2015), anyone?

[AndieMac]

Hello MapisM, AndieMac et al,

This is my third go at an initial reply.

Sorry for my delayed response, but after arriving back in Sydney, I had my corneas replaced and have only just regained a binocular view of the world.

I'll be posting some stills shortly.

cheers, John

Hi John, great to catch up in Hobart and we loved your boat. Would have been good to spend more time chatting, but what a busy day! Well, Tasmanian busy anyway

Noticed you had plenty of interested folks admiring the vessel!

Would be interested a cruise report heading back to Sydney, if you have the inclination?!

Cheers, Callum

 

[MapisM]

This is my third go at an initial reply.

Hi John,
pleased to hear that your return trip was fine, and that you are recovering from the operation.
Aside from seconding Callum in being interested to hear more also about the world famous route between Sydney and Hobart, I wanted to tell you that it's normal to have some difficulties upon your first attempt to post, because the forum software puts anybody's first post in a sort of limbo, awaiting for a moderator approval.
You will be good to go right away from now on, with your next posts. That I'm looking forward to read, needless to say!

Oh, and thanks again for your warm welcome onboard your beautiful boat at the AWBF!

 

[eagle]

Hello All,

With encouragement from MapisM and AndieMac, here are a few words and images by way of introduction.

I’ve always played with boats, relishing the freedom and (apparent) spontaneity of ownership, but my inevitable transition from free range sailor to grumpy old fart happened behind my back while playing with my lovely old strip-planked 46ft sloop.

The designer of this ocean racer had naturally assumed a crew of ten spent all their time either grinding away on the sea-swept winch farm or lying exhausted in a pipe cot. While being able to sail anywhere in a bullet-proof boat was cool, short handed cruising life was relatively spartan, especially in harbour.

Anyway after 19 years of cruising with a large rig and nowhere to sprawl, a search for a comfortable coastal cruising motorboat was begun.

The winning compromise turns out to be a 50’ x 16’ x 6’ ‘sharpie’ working boat hull planked with Iron Bark with Crows Ash superstructure, and a single Gardner 6lxb rated at 127hp.

I’ve owned her for two and a half years and have put 950 hrs on the engine with local and long distance coastal cruising.






No buyer's remorse so far.

cheers, John

 

[MapisM]

Hi John, checking the new posts on the "subscribed" threads is usually the first thing I do when looking at the forum, but for some reason, so far I missed your reply with the pics.
Thanks for sharing them with us, Flemingo is a beautiful vessel indeed - and even more so when seen in the flesh, as also AndieMac can confirm, I'm sure.

Btw, 127hp out of a TEN LITERS block.... Talk about squeezing the highest possible power to weight ratio out of a engine... NOT!
You possibly mentioned that when we met, but I surely didn't get my thoughts in order about how overengineered that Gardner thing is.

 

[eagle]

Don't wish to quibble Paolo, but it's actually 10.45 litres

 

[MapisM]

LOL, fairenuff. I actually mentioned 10L by heart, based on what I remembered of our chat in Hobart...
...Must admit that I have zero experience with Gardner engines!
Otoh, I've seen quite a few Cat C12 and VP D12 (both 12 liter engines, rated for more than 700 hp), and if I should have estimated the displacement of your Gardner by comparison, I'd have probably said that it was even bigger than those 12L blocks...

 

[AndieMac]

Talking about your old original (Eagle) 46' stripped planked yacht, as we mentioned in Hobart, I used to hang around in the boat yard as a youngster when she was being built. By local terms she was a big boat, and when launched, the whole vessel above the waterline was finished in varnish. I guess early days of strip planking, perhaps the original owner was "loud and proud" of the built technique?

How was voyage North after the festival?

 

[eagle]

perhaps the original owner was "loud and proud" of the built technique?

G’day Callum small world,

Yes, Eagle’s original owner couldn’t find a buyer until he painted that lovely Huon Pine hull white, at least he kept the transom bright. When I took her down to Tassie in 2011, some festival trainspotters demanded to know how a boat with a “veneer” transom got to in a wooden boat festival!

How was voyage North after the festival?

We had a good trip North.

BOM’s outlook for Bass Strait gave us a smallish window before the weather closed down, so we planned to go direct, keeping close to Flinders with Babel Island in mind as an optional staging point if we were too early.

We departed from King’s Pier at 0640 on Feb 10, timing the Denison transit and Marion bay tides nicely.

Up Mercury Passage and out past Schouten the Bass Strait window was holding, so we pushed on in a 20-25kn NE breeze plus cross swell which kept us down at around 6kn in a lumpy sea. When the breeze finally eased above Eddystone light, the sea stayed lumpy courtesy of Banks Strait.



The good news was that Bass Strait still looked reasonable with the breeze SW 15-20kn we made a pleasant crossing, anchoring behind the Woodchip Mill wharf in East Boyd Bay after steaming for 59 hours out of Hobart.

With the NSW southerly set and NE breezes, we opted to do daily hops Eden-Batemans-Jervis-Sydney, running close inshore.



it was an uneventful 36hrs steaming over 3 days, with the exception of being badly caught out in a truly Wagnerian lightning storm off Jervis, and finding a dinghy chained and padlocked in our Sydney berth. The ship’s angle grinder allowed us to adjust its berthing arrangements with a minimum of fuss.

Overall we steamed 95hrs over five days Hobart-Sydney.

John

 

[AndieMac]

Cheers for the report John, I was interested to hear how things went. It's always nice to have the "paddock" (Bass Strait) behind you. No doubt East Boyd Bay had the usual large number of boats waiting to either do the crossing or sleeping off the effects after it.

 

[MapisM]

Overall we steamed 95hrs over five days Hobart-Sydney.

Wow.
That puts the average cruises of us Med boaters in perspective....
Well done, and many thanks for your update! :encouragement:

 

[BartW]

I'm following this thread with much interest, thanks for the updates