Night Sail

Here in Moolooba we have continued to tick things off our job list, though the jobs are getting much smaller. One of the most troublesome ones we have had is the rolling furling jib sail that we could not figure out how to change the furling line. Normally a very easy job to change this line, Dave and Craig spent many hours scratching their heads about how the mechanism was put together: it did not allow access to the knot holding the line in place, it seemed to be hermetically sealed inside the mechanism.

We made a break through with the help of a New Zealand cruiser on the dock who found the manufacturer of the unit. Prior to this we contacted "Reef-It" which is stamped on the drum, a company in Tasmania has that name, but they had never seen the unit, having no advice. We looked all over the internet for another company or reference wit "Reef-It", but it was all this Tasmanian company. We were stumped until our Kiwi neighbor said that most furlers there were made by Reef-Rite. Sure enough, a 2 minute call to Reef-Rite and we understood that the top of the furler which appeared to be a single unit by us and maybe a dozen spectator neighbors who looked on over the 3-4 occassions we had the furler disassembled. Once you know what to do, it was simple - Craig had it apart in minutes, and put back together in short order.

We were so excited to fix our furler that we decided to leave just a few hours later. There was just a breif weather window to go before a storm coming, so we planned to leave soon after dark on June 18. This meant we would go for our first night sail, and arrive at the crossing of a shallow bar at just the right tide. We had to make it on a schedule to coincide with the tides, but we gave ourselves a few hours extra, so that we could hopefully sail there on time, without having to run the engine to make a schedule.

We took an unusual step for us of talking with the Coast Guard, who in Australia seemed to be staffed by volunteers who are older men who are looking for something useful to do. We talked with them, got the latest weather, which was forecast for mild for the rest of the night, but stronger weather was on its way the next afternoon. We confirmed our decision to leave right way. Evvy and Dave ran to the store to get fresh food before leaving town and Craig got the boat ship shape for an overnight passage.

We left the harbor with hardly a breath of wind, and the beach nearby was quiet about sunset when we last looked. What a difference happened in a couple hours during our last minute prepareations. When we motored out of the break water the seas were a washing machine of confused waves, and the wind was blowing 15-20 knots, directly where we wanted to go, North West, far away from the forecast. We headed on, expecting conditions to change, but after 4 hours of trying, we were getting pushed further off shore away from our target, seas and winds growing by the hour, with wind now up to 25-30 and we were all a bit blue in the gills.

We decided to beat a retreat back to Moolooba, which meant turning down wind. Down wind sailing is MUCH easier, so we had an immediate change of scene, though the seas were still lumpy. As we sailed back to port, the wind and seas came back to a very reasonable level, and even started to turn more South, which would have enabled us to actually sail to our destination! It was hard to see the wind beginning to come from a better direction, but it was no matter since we were out of time to make it across the Hervey Bay bar during the right tide. There were squalls of gusty wind and rain started coming in and Evvy was steering us home by hand to make sure we came in safely. We arrived back in port about 3 a.m., the seas had calmed and the wind was back to a reasonable level. We spent the next day in Mooloolaba, recovering from the uncomfortable all night sail in the comfort of the marina and the little beach and boardwalk near us.

Maia is looking out to sea again right now, perhaps we will be out of communication for a week or two while moving North to Hervey Bay and beyond. More pics on next update.