Preparing to set sail 24 - 28 November

Tashi Delek
Mike & Carol Kefford
Wed 28 Nov 2012 20:04

First things first.  Put the crew to work.  Brad is incredibly knowledgeable about yachts and incredibly competent in a whole set of skills that we are only just passable at.  We had some rust on the windvane that needed attending to and by the time Brad had finished sanding, prepping and painting it was better than new.  It is difficult to describe just how well he does this kind of thing and how great it is to benefit from such good results.

 

 

We had a stroke of luck when we visited the second hand chandlers. We were looking for a piece of offcut teak but on the way in pretty much fell over a second hand cruising chute (Asymmetric Spinnaker) that had just been put on sale.  This is something we knew we needed to buy in order to keep sailing in very light winds rather than resort to the engine.  This one had been used twice.  It was a fraction small than ideal however, with just the two of us most of the time, we tend to underpower the boat and travel at a bit less than full speed anyway so the size wouldn’t be a problem.  The shop let us take it to try and here again we were pleased to have Brads assistance.  Having raced yachts for years he knows all about these things.  (His boat, Evergreen, incidentally came with 17 sails and a trailer to keep them in!!)

 

Cruising chutes are big so there is a lot of nylon to wrestle……..

 

 

But up it went……

 

 

It was indeed immaculate and really just what we needed.  Carol negotiated a further $100 dollars off the price and we did the deal.

 

We were pleased with the timing because our weather forecasts were indicating days and days of very light winds so a cruising chute would be just the job.

 

A critical part of our preparations was watching the weather.  We listen to a chap called Chris Parker who gives fantastically detailed forecasts on the long range radio each morning.  When we are about to do a long passage we subscribe to his service for a month which means we can talk to him direct and he will go through a forecast for us and advise on how best to navigate the passage.  We had a wifi connection so we were able to watch his simultaneous webcast which meant he could show us on the weather maps and charts what it was he was talking about.  Really cool stuff.

 

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We delayed a few days more because we didn’t fancy going straight out into strong winds and big seas.  Then, finally, it looked better and we were able to leave on the 28th.  We were pleased to be moving on at last but very sorry to leave our haven in Whitaker Creek and our new friends here.

 

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