madyottie

It was just me and my ten year old daughter. Was not quite enough wind to get a hull out, but we had a lot of fun trying. There's no urgency for me Bill, I'm starting to work back in the Land of Auck next week, so then I should get to go sailing a lot more. And there's a winter series happening, not far away. Realistically I'm probably looking a year away before I haul out, until then I'll play with the tides! For the last few months I've been working very close to home, but the down side has been working most weekends. I'm looking forward to having a real job again, with enou

I've noticed a small crack and slightly soft feel to one of the GBE's cockpit floors. I can do a repair good enough to get by, with no long lasting bad side effects, but I'd like to get some thoughts on a strong, light layup, that can hold a couple of large adults bouncing around on it. Something to do when I finally haul out, perhaps. She's an original, all glass GBE, with no significant mods other than higher aspect blades all round. I'd like to keep her that way, but stronger is better!

I suspected Bill would know the answer, if he's not the organiser. It's just one of those things I hadn't thought of, really. Eric, which club?

So, I popped up to the boat to go out for a little play this afternoon, and couldn't help noticing quite a large number of multi's on the hard at little shoal bay. How and when are these organised? Is there a register or something I should sign up to? At present I can do all the things I need to do between tides, but I'll need to haul for a few weeks to sand and fair at some point. Ideally this would be when everyone else is doing it.

This rounds on the house!

"Boats on the roof rack, now where are the tie-downs?"

It's hard enough getting the family onboard! I think that sticker might just be terminal

Back on topic... I've often suggested to my wife that we should buy a big tri and park it in the papakura channel. Live on board, and just every few months whip over to onehunga to empty and fill the relevant tanks. Apparently the harbour master isn't interested in "moored" boats on the Manukau. But even if he were, moorings are cheap! Some of those big (35-40ft) Pivers etc also go pretty cheap.

Sorry Dambo, but this comment really got under my skin. I recently moved out of South Auckland, but I'd be back there in a heartbeat if the market were to drop suitably. Yes there are some seedy characters about, but they are everywhere. We lived in South Aucks for around seven years, in two areas often called rough by some, but loved by the people that live there. In Wiri, we were in the minority, being white with a young family, where most of the locals were older white folk, or young PI families. For the first few weeks we were a little nervous, but honestly it turned out to b

Ok guys, given that most of my sailing has been small(ish) boats with one hull, I have a serious question about rig setup for the GBE. How much rake or helm, and how much shroud tension? I've noticed there seems to be a lot of slack in the rigging, the lee shroud flopping around a lot, and a correspondingly large amount of forestay sag if I'm not cranking the mainsheet hard. My rig also seems quite upright, and with full sail I seem to have pretty neutral helm. On mono's I tend to aim for a tiny amount of weather helm, should I do the same in the cat, or does that just equate to t

Back in my PT days, Rex Sly won two nationals on the trot,one windy and one not. I'm pretty sure he only weighed around 9 stone, sorry, no idea what that is in new money. A full rig Laser is going to be too much in over about ten knots, although from memory it feels really REALLY good to pass the top sailors on a flying reach, while theyre still sitting on the side!

To be fair, third party liability insurance is only a few hundy, a small price to pay for piece of mind. I don't have a lot of expensive boats around mine, but I still wouldn't want to pay salvage on any that sank as a result of my negligence. My policy wording puts the onus on me to keep the mooring well maintained, and that cost significantly more than my premium each year. But again, Insurance is that thing we all hope not to use, but is very nice to have. Referring to Ed's comment above, for a reasonable price I had two options - Youi, or Lloyds of London. None of the mainstrea

Funny thing is, family were quite happy in the little 16 foot trailer yacht, being pushed hard, even in quite nasty manukau stuff. I think part of the problem now is the chaotic water thrown up by all the launches and ferries, so once we get past north head things should improve. Especially once I get Gina a drysuit, she's not keen on the "rising damp" when the waves hit the outboard pod.

And congrats on the new toy. Our combined age is soo much lower, only about 80! Hope to see you out there a whole lot more

Haha thats one for ya. It was our first actual family sail where the weather played ball. Not much screaming from the littlies and the eldest daughter actually enjoying it. Baby slept on the tramp wrapped in my jacket for the ride back up. Apparently the old pinhead still has some drive in it, although probably last thing on my job list is shape the battens, even after the gennaker and reef points

Yeah, someone on here suggested some pop up tents, so I've got a couple of them. Trying to plan some usable space inside at present because I don't have the requisite funding for the big boom tent yet. But yes, lots of deck space and awesome sailing! Which reminds me, I haven't actually set up a reefing system yet. Best make a start on that too.

One awesome way to finish up the summer! A hot fine Saturday afternoon on the sparkling Waitemata harbour. We were only out for a few hours, but chased and almost caught the Green Death Trap on the way home. We saw a top speed of 12 knots just west of the naval dock. Pretty surprising considering the wind was only about 10 knots and the boat needs a scrub. Now it's time to work on the inside, make the cruisey parts work as well as the sailey bits. Lots of things to do, but she's user friendly from the decks up. A couple of mates are keen to join in a few of the winter series races

It's still part of the RYA dinghy instructor training. We had to sail rudderless around a triangular course, which meant tacking up the beat, reaching out to the wing mark, gybing, reaching back in to the finish. Some guys really struggled with it - not sure why, in a boat like a Wayfarer (which we were using) it's incredibly easy. Pretty easy in a sunburst too. It's bleedin hard in a laser, that little trim tab hanging off the back really does make a big difference. I haven't watched the vid yet, but I know Steve does some great stuff. He's probably the fastest dinghy sailor ever dow

I can see an advantage for a tri like TW in that when the main hull lifts, the deck of the ama is very close to the water. pinching the top would provide less chance of doing the big endo if you stuck it under, as there's no big flat surface to resist the water. For a racing cat I guess it's less weight and windage, as mentioned above. For a cruising cat (or tri) I'm with BP. What's the point? It just makes a 45 foot boat a bit smaller. Kinda like the tumblehome on those old IOR boats.

Yeah, run over a few kites in my lifetime, I don't remember ever doing it on my own boats tho. Apparently my kites a fraccy, so should be slightly easier to deal with than some other mastheads. Although I believe it has been trawled once before. Do you normally drop on the windward side? In my skiff days we would run flat so the kite collapsed, then haul windward sheet until the clew was in hand, then dump halyard and tack together. Transferred the exact same method to the Fireball except had to trip the pole when flat off to reach the tack. (Symmetric kites).

Do you have one line to pull the kite up and out to the end of the prod, or two separate lines? I know a lot of high performance dinghies now have a continuous line that does everything with one pull. And some even use a pump up/down system.

Finally got the alloy wear plates for the jib sheet leads fitted early this morning, then went for a sail. The bottom badly needs a scrub, so we didn't manage to really get going, although to be fair there was hardly any wind, maybe reaching 10kts for part of the trip home. Our top speed was probably a little lower than that, I don't think we would have hit double digits. In the very light, we had a little tussle with the rented AC boat, which during the course of the day overtook us 3 times. We did get past them once tho, so not all bad! I have gone back to a single ended mainsheet fo

With it being Easter, some of you must be out around the gulf. Myself and a few mates are out tomorrow (Saturday) in Euphoria for a blast around, does anyone fancy meeting up for a lunch somewhere? We're planning to leave northcote around 1030. Will go wherever the mood takes us. If you're headin' out, leave a note on here. Aaron.

I'm guessing that it's Fat Freddy's Drop, considering it was planned to be a part of the unofficial cruising series. Sadly I can't go due to working sunday arvo

I'll second that! Me me me and me!!