John B

Really, David? You've a lot more miles than me and I didn't have a problem with cat 1 , despite not being an exam passer and without courses and qualifications stacked up.

I can understand this, reminds me of the open cpn weather guy stopped from leaving NZ in what was patently an accident waiting to happen. But the punishment , my god , what have we come to. Thats just so far over the top.

Thats bad. We've had stuff lifted from our place before now and you're right . That motor looks really great ,Matt.... what sort of paint is all that white , something special for the heat I assume.

Looks nice , wait.... I'm getting a message from the etherspace ... I can seee a new hard dodger in Topaz' future......

What happened , over vigorous relative , Launch arrives great Barrier and discovers the great Spark communications black hole? I don't think a failure to terminate a trip report results in anything much.

That's why I wondered about Simpson rock.

I've seen Horn rock in a big swell sailing past , great fishing there if you can get past the sharks. But the really interesting thing about it and Puff's photo shows that off well, is how extensive the shallows are around it. I sat there on a calm day fishing but the lift over the whole area was quite something to see relative to just being off a hundred metres.

That article fits the usual level of accuracy we've come to expect. Little Barrier has been upgraded according to the photo.

I presumed they planned a day at the Mokes on the way to GB.

Yeah the old 286 I have for a brain seems to recall it. Must have been circa 2005 or 6 and it was in the tall ships regatta. But hey... I'm famous cos I have a photo on the interwebs! !

I wonder.....Simpson rock on the way to the mokes is a bit sneaky.

Didn't I take that photo ?

Yes, nice work. Great access by the looks too.

That varnished interior would make it easy to spot the issues. Could be good.

That's a shame, never good to see. Port Jackson has that reef that you know goes out a long way. Then, when you get there its twice as far as that.

Unfortunately I left my decoder ring at home, and we were away last winter avoiding Rimas when he disappeared at Texas reef by Rabi , Phew , near miss. So I don't know what Shanes boat is or what he's been up to over that period.

What sort of boat was he in when he wrecked?

Our plan is don't go over , be in a boat where you actually have a safe place to be , like shock horror , a proper cockpit where you can get some shelter and have something to brace against , unlike those not fit for purpose clipper RTW boats, and its looking like the Volvo RTW boats as well. And then have multiple options scaled to whatever the circumstances are should someone go in after all of that. Lifesling on the back for extra buoyancy and a 'tether'. Boarding ladder on the back should the sea conditions allow boarding from the stern. 2 pull out rope ladders amidships both s

Yes , and again using the vintage example which sets a flying jib the mode there is to tension the halyard until you see the forestay sag away slightly.... the jib wire/ spectra luff effectively becomes the forestay. And you also get the same effect on cutter and particularly solent rigs when you tension one stay or halyard more than another. IE , tension the staysail iup too far and the genoa will develop sag, because there's two wires sharing the load . ie only half( say , for simplification purposes) of the rig tension left available for the genoa. edit . oops 2 new posts while typ

I spent a lot of time sailing wooden rigs and gaff rigs. That teaches you a lot about rig geometry and forces that affect a spar, because wood bends more easily and telegraphs( hahaha, unintentional pun) whats happening by obvious and visible bend. They're actually easier to tune because of that. People forget how important running rigging is . An example , on a gaff rig ( my mainsail was 600 ft, nominal and rounded , say 60 sq m) the main sheet actually is responsible for most of the forestay tension, more properly , the jib luff tension. There's a circle of force from the mainsheet , th

If you do any new ,the john guest push together stuff is sheet hot. An adapter can be got too, to convert from the old dux/ buteline type stuff which are imperial versus metric in the new. Says clean ,pressure cockpit shower boy, oh yeah.

That is definitely an area to be avoided.... makes me want to just anchor there and wave people off. A bit of public service, giving back you might say.

I learnt something in the first sea survival course I did, and same with the med course, so I don't begrudge doing them. Med refresher I can understand but the only thing new or different in the sea survival over the 4 years was the advent of AIS transponders, which I knew about.

Yeah , I'm sure that was a requirement. Sea survival to a certain percentage of crew. Sea survival was a course worth doing but it annoys me that it runs out after 5 years and there is no refresher course. You learn nothing the second time around and you are forced to hand over yet another $500 to someone else to satisfy some paper If there was a refresher at reduced cost it would be much fairer and more reasonable..

The general cruising fleet will be leaving from may on and comes back before December, there's often people looking for crew either way. More often they're organised to go up and need people for the return. So you need that offshore sailing under your belt. I've met several people who advertised their availability here and got on boats. You could also contact or join the Island Cruising assn and tell them you want a job sailing as crew. After all the cyclones last year I think they're leaving later , more like late may this year. You need a sea survival course, and a medic course.