Showing posts with label some. Show all posts
Showing posts with label some. Show all posts
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Off to Masthead Island for some reef hopping South
December 1 - 2016
The sky began to lighten nice and early at Great Keppel Island as the calendar ticked over to December first. It was now well and truly into summer and we were enjoying nice long days. Despite having fifteen or so hours of daylight available to us, we still raised the anchor in the predawn for our fifty nautical mile passage offshore to Masthead Island on the outer Great Barrier Reef. We wanted to arrive early enough to have time to go ashore and do some exploring as we only planned to spend the night there before moving onto Fitzroy Reef for a couple of nights before sailing further south to Lady Musgrave Island.
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| On our way from Great Keppel Island as the sun climbs into the sky. |
Only a very weak north easterly breeze blew in the early morning. Hopefully it would strengthen enough later in the day for us to sail but the engine stayed on as we began the passage on flat seas. Fortunately the wind angle generated as we motored along was such that we were able to fill the sails and gain a small lift. We also look a lot better with the sails up, very important of course.
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| Light winds and calm seas en-route to Mast Head Island. |
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| Our Whitby 42 ketch does well motor sailing in light conditions. |
As hoped, the wind did fill in enough in the late morning for us to silence our 80HP Ford Lehman and glide along nicely maintaining better than five knots. Karen took advantage of the calm sea state to spend some time in the galley teaching Kristian how to make his own sushi rolls for lunch which proved a smash hit – highlight of the very laid back passage in fact.
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| At last, enough wind to silence the engine. |
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| Kristian constructing his own sushi rolls for lunch. |
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| They're a winner. |
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| Great Keppel Island to Masthead Island 49.9 Nautical Miles – 9 Hours 17 Minutes Average Speed 5.4 - Max Speed 7.9 Knots To see our track in a zoom-able format click HERE |
The pilot guide suggests the best depths to anchor in are to be found off the north west corner of the island’s fringing reef and the Google Earth imagery also indicated this was also where the most sand was to be found. However, the wind was forecast to continue from the north east before swinging slightly more northerly over night. The tide was very low when we arrived and the reef was totally exposed but we were concerned that the high tide overnight could see any swell sweep over the reef so we anchored in 7 metres a little further in along the reef edge in attempt to gain some more protection from the island itself.
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| Masthead Island has good sand for southerlies through to north easterlies but we pushed the anchoring envelope with an overnight northerly predicted. |
Dinghy access to the beach was impossible with the low tide so that ruled out our planned afternoon’s exploration of the island. Rob decided to see if he could spear us some dinner instead so we dropped the dinghy off the davits and zoomed over to a likely looking section of reef. He was only in the water a few minutes before surfacing with a nice coral trout.
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| Hunter-gatherer about to do his thing. |
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| One coral trout headed for the dinghy. |
Next he spied two crayfish hiding under a coral ledge and was soon passing the first one into the dinghy before heading back for the second. Unfortunately this larger specimen managed to evade him scurrying into a deep inaccessible hole in the coral. Keen to add to the catch to provide a decent dinner of crustacean, a long but ultimately unsuccessful search for more crayfish followed.
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| The fringing reef at Masthead Island provides incredible snorkelling |
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| La Jorja arrives at Masthead Island |
Having enjoyed a sleep in and later start from Great Keppel, our friends, Matt and Debbie on La Jorja had arrived while Rob roaming the reef was chasing shellfish. They anchored up nearby and while a visit for another sundowners session was inviting, we opted to get the dinghy back up on the davits as the wind and swell was building. We also had another early start planned next morning to arrive at the right point of the tide to pass through the narrow entrance into the lagoon at Fitzroy Reef.
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| Rob's snorkelling yielded a good sized coral trout and crayfish. |
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| A couple of visitors on the bow. |
We enjoyed a nice feed on the very fresh coral trout done on the BBQ that evening and were treated to a truly awesome sunset that went on forever evolving through a number of stages. That night the wind did swing more from the north at about 15 knots with a bit of swell finding its way over or around the reef at high tide. We also spun 180 degrees when the tidal flow reversed but still enjoyed a reasonably comfortable night.
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| The Masthead Island beaches were lined with the tracks of nesting turtles. We look forward to exploring ashore next time. |
Next morning both us and La Jorja found our anchors/chains fouled and took a fair bit of time and effort to free ourselves. We both paid that price for choosing the additional protection of anchoring further behind the island rather than over the clearer sand bottom to the north west. Regardless, we are very keen to return to Masthead Island sometime in the future and explore underwater more of the great fringing reef and get to land on the island itself. A few more crayfish would be good too.
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| We hope you enjoy the evolution of a magnificent sunset below. Good night from Masthead Island. |
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| Cape Capricorn in the distance. |
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Saturday, October 15, 2016
Hillman Californian gives up some secrets
The return of the 1967 Hillman Californian and by its own motive power was a good day for me, the fact that it still drove was a bonus in itself but what would I find wrong with the car?
For sure it had been messed about with, trims damaged or removed, the back bumper was bent and had a split in it but on the good side was a newish water pump and tyres, not sure where they are from, China?
For sure it had been messed about with, trims damaged or removed, the back bumper was bent and had a split in it but on the good side was a newish water pump and tyres, not sure where they are from, China?
A good power wash with solid clean water soon showed some changes made but why is there a large space at the top of the road spring on the drivers side?
They have fitted a new (?) shock absorber and its about 35mm too long!
Roy
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Some highlights from the IBEX Trade Show
At first glance IBEX looks like any other boat show. The Mercs, Yamas, and Suzys were clustered together in outboard land. Companies like Ritchie, Raymarine and Garmin had nice booths, but where are the boats? The few you see are showing off products like boat covers.
Then you notice booths selling fabrics, composite materials and resins. The people are different also. They're wearing lots of nice poloesque shirts bearing logos that have words like Scout and Grady White embroidered on them.
This is the trade show for boat builders, and I'm a newbie NMMA Innovation award judge. I feel right at home here. Welcome to the International Boatbuilders Exhibition and Conference produced by the National Marine Manufacturing Association and Professional Boatbuilder magazine.
This is a Trade Only show, and it's all about business. This is everything production boat builders worldwide need to build their boats and manage their facilities. With a 47 percent increase in visitors over last year this bodes well for the industry.
This is the trade show for boat builders, and I'm a newbie NMMA Innovation award judge. I feel right at home here. Welcome to the International Boatbuilders Exhibition and Conference produced by the National Marine Manufacturing Association and Professional Boatbuilder magazine.
This is a Trade Only show, and it's all about business. This is everything production boat builders worldwide need to build their boats and manage their facilities. With a 47 percent increase in visitors over last year this bodes well for the industry.
In many ways it's like a slightly altered dimension. The Butterfly effect is in play. Instead of West Marine you see their Port Supply wholesale division. Airmar is represented by their distribution company Gemeco which I will talk a bit about later.
Award judging is not a piece of cake as my worn out feet can atest to. There are 89 entries spread across 13 categories. Here is the catch.
You have about 2 gigabytes of entry information to review prior to the show. The awards are going to be presented just before the show opens on Tuesday morning. We are starting our work early on Sunday morning. The judges want to meet with as many entrants as possible to give them a chance to personally pitch their products.
You have about 2 gigabytes of entry information to review prior to the show. The awards are going to be presented just before the show opens on Tuesday morning. We are starting our work early on Sunday morning. The judges want to meet with as many entrants as possible to give them a chance to personally pitch their products.
To do this we have to chase them down in a convention hall under construction. This means the seven of us are dodging fork trucks and threading our way through through a sea of crates. Sometimes the entrant is there, if not we try later, and some we track down down and get the pitch via cell phone. If you could see our GPS tracks, it would look like a bowl of spaghetti. I'm not going to discuss the deliberations, but we all take this very seriously, were happy with our decisions, and we all volunteer the time to do this.
I've always thought a good sobriety test would be to put on booties. While standing you have to balance on one leg and use two hands to pull those shapeless baggy things over your shoes, and then repeat. Now do it while balancing on a 10" wide coaming while carrying your tool bag. They get dirty quickly and they cost about $2 a pair.
One of the winners of an innovation award was Trimaco's E=Z Floor Guards. It works like a giant Scotch tape dispenser. Fellow judge Judy Waldman is my foot model in the picture. Step on the pad, lift your foot up and slide it back. Then push down and the aft serrated edge cuts the plastic material. Simple, fast, and inexpensive. I think it would also be great for boat shows. I'm always amazed at how large the pile of shoes can grow dockside.
The thing that struck me about the Medallion Viper II Malibu Command Center, winner of the IBEX OEM Electronics award were the two words said. Automotive model.
Instead of looking to the marine industry for electronic components Medallion metaphorically turned to Detroit. The touchscreen display you're looking at is also used in the S class Mercedes, and other vehicles. As explained to me the standards in the auto industry are high, and production volumes are very large. This in turn insures a long product support life.
When contrasted with many custom marine electronics systems I have seen that are expensive, produced at low volumes and had a too short support life this is a very viable approach. This display is bright anticipating use in convertibles, and has an additional anti-glare film applied to the surface.
A secondary touch screen is used for navigation and other vessel control functions. Modern ski and wakeboard tow boats such as Malibu's are very sophisticated. With multiple ballast tanks and using fast pumps the boat's weight and balance can quickly be adjusted for varying loads.
Speciality tabs are deployed to control wake size and position. A thumping stereo system, seemingly de rigueur for these boats is also integrated into the Medallion control center. This was a well executed and carefully thought out system integration job and worthy of the award.
Speciality tabs are deployed to control wake size and position. A thumping stereo system, seemingly de rigueur for these boats is also integrated into the Medallion control center. This was a well executed and carefully thought out system integration job and worthy of the award.
Airmar's transducers are known to almost all boaters, but their distribution arm Gemeco is not well known to the public. Gemeco is the distributor of Airmar's transducers and much more.
The catalog is like marine electronics delicatessen. Nearly 180 pages of transducers, their connectors, cables, fairing blocks, and spare parts. A huge selection of marine networking and communication gear from Actisense, Maretron and others. In effect every everything needed to deal with NMEA networks is all in one place.
The catalog is like marine electronics delicatessen. Nearly 180 pages of transducers, their connectors, cables, fairing blocks, and spare parts. A huge selection of marine networking and communication gear from Actisense, Maretron and others. In effect every everything needed to deal with NMEA networks is all in one place.
Today's marine electronics are more than ever able to communicate using a huge array of technologies. The interactive "Connected Boat interactive display was sponsored by Simrad and was demonstrating for boat builders the "Art of connectivity."
A dozen manufacturers were showcasing use of RS232, NMEA 0183/2000, Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wireless, ANT, Cellular, Satellite, Internet, JT1939 and more. This was a really good piece of work made better by the presence of Chetco's Joe Burke who could explain in detail what can be done.
Advanced technologies that have traditionally been either unaffordable, or ignored by boat builders are slowly creeping into the light and some of this was apparent at the show.
The Handibot low cost CNC machines created out a Kickstarter campaign were being shown and a session on 3D printing was held. Add to the mix design and manufacturing software, laser based coordinate measuring systems, robotically cut hull plugs, advance composites and closed mold technologies.
The Handibot low cost CNC machines created out a Kickstarter campaign were being shown and a session on 3D printing was held. Add to the mix design and manufacturing software, laser based coordinate measuring systems, robotically cut hull plugs, advance composites and closed mold technologies.
It was a great learning experience topped off by listening to coach Bob Knight's keynote address. Humorous at times poignant at others, and all on the subject of personal self reliance. He never threw anything, but most were careful about what questions they asked him. Bob Knight was an excellent choice by NMMA for a speaker.
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