John B

Sideways thinking here, but fish would be quite a good thing to carry bait in. Comes out of the water prepackaged in a sort of slimy covering. Its where I get mine, but you do have to own some really small hooks with little wings on them and be prepared to stay up late , like 8 or 9 PM , to get them.

My best is Mahaki , as I said there. She's a circa 1894 Logan. Its hard to tell length in a foreshortened shot like that but Mahaki had a short bowsprit and was unusual for the day in that she was sloop rigged as opposed to cutter, which that photo subject has and is. The sheer fits , the cabin windows and coamings fit, the bow which is transitional clipper, not spoon , fits. I still get the feeling it might be a shorter boat than mahaki but , well, thats my best slightly educated in the area , guess. I also vaguely recall a cruise to Whangaroa in Mahaki being written up in one of the ancie

Not one little bit.

I know that boat , it's in charter. (Edit , seems like a yachtshare arrangement rather than full charter according to people below.) I just would see it with different people using it. To be fair , poor knights is not exactly a safe anchorage in that sort of wind. I suppose it could be done...You might hook up ok under the cliffs by or north of riko riko, but it's pretty deep. I count it a fair weather anchorage.

(Cough),Considering the people we've met over the years and who are now in that age group......, more likely to be an inexperience issue than an age issue per se. Just saying....( wink smiley face thing)

Is it a Piedy?

Yeah Mimi was the best option for ESE. Sad. A friend of mine was doing a 2 handed Round Waiheke club race 10 or 15 years ago in his D28. They were in a real 40 knots by the bottom end of Waiheke, beat up into big northerlies and made a seamanship decision to go on past Gannet before tacking even though they could have layed through earlier. Annnnyway, as they tacked they lost their rudder and found themselves without steering( they rounded up) and a bukh 10 . Couldn't make headway out and drifted backwards over time to the seaward side ( Northern coast ) of what forms Hooks bay. Th

Manta ? a buddy had dial a manta hitting his rudder at anchor at Musket last year. Turn on his blue transom lights, manta arrives, stays as long as the lights are on. We'd go over and watch him for ages. Two big ones at Barrier at christmas too, doing the underwater feeding loops in between Coppermine and the needles.

A couple of years ago we were sailing down past Bream head on a breezy day, choppy. 8 knots I suppose. Evidently we surprised a whale enough for him to make an emergency dive out of our way. We only knew as we ran over the clear/tail turbulence and the contents of the ballast tank he blew on the way down. Roughly enough material to fill an average saloon car.

Lyttleton on steroids.

Check the exhaust mixer/elbow. They only last 5 or 7 years on many motors.

The value to a cruising yotty of seeing which forecast model ends up being accurate a week out is you add it to your quiver of similar observations and develop a trend as to which model is more right than wrong in any given season. Over the years, some seasons I've seen metvuw bang on and metservice either just plain wrong or so conservative they may as well be wrong. Then another year , olliversudden, metservice is right and metvuw drags the chain. Add to that the generic overseas forecasts and start figuring out which models the various outfits are using and apply that to the trend

Slightly off track, friends of ours were getting frustrated with the continual maintenance of steel on their cruising boat, it was wearing them out. Until they got T boned at anchor in sept by a catamaran doing 8 knots into the anchorage, other side of musket . they like steel now.

Thats food for thought , I don't know anything about top down furling. and the more I think about it the less I know. I thought top down furling was for gennaker ( or big zero)type sails set on the bow. I don't think I've heard of it being used as a solent jib inside another furler. So top down means a separate high tensile luff rope running independent of the sail luff rope as I understand it. As opposed to a standard flying sail type furler with a drum attached directly to the sail and integral sail luff rope, and then a swivel at the top. halyard on a 2:1 and or winch for luff

I can't do pictures since Photobucket broke the internet ,Fish, but if you google Wykham Martin furling gear you'll see what it is. Its the same as now functionally ( drum furler) but quite small, really heavy and its bronze. Standard ball bearing races in them ,and the top swivel. The modern near frictionless gear is far superior to use. On our classic I ended up using the wykham martin drum and a modern torlon bearing top swivel and that really helped.

I know that in the English canals we'd groan if we happened to have a GRP cruiser in front of us or coming in with us for the locks. The steel boats you just go in and lean against whatever. GRP its all fenders and running around with springs and general panic stations. So there is that factor.

Twisty and I both come from classic boats and had Wykham martin furlers on those. They are flying sails and systems just like a modern zero type , except designed in the 1920's , made of bronze and much less free running bearings. Jibs were wire luff and don't furl as evenly as the modern luff material. Quite small jibs as part of a cutter rig. Anyway, what I learnt there was that the best way to furl those less efficient units is to bear away , blanket the jib and furl it then. I still do that on the 'modern' most of the time , It means I can furl up 400 or 500 ft by hand without

Might catch up at Easter perhaps.

We do rig our inner and leave it on if we're going to sea, it makes no real difference having it there cruising. Depending on what might happen it'll have the heavy staysail or small storm jib rigged and ready. Still , not a fun job setting it shorthanded in a seaway when there's a better and safer option.( which is why the furler in one shape or another will happen.) I have actually crewed on a boat rigged with a flying staysail but we never needed it, never used it. Noumea to Brisbane. It was this Dashew I saw recently that made me start thinking of it. Another reason for a tradit

Thats what I have now. I'm talking about furling options.

No , but on monday we'll see . Thats interesting you say that about PWE and PWG .They didn't pick up the late season cyclones last year very early... Ella / Donna ... one or both of those. Good ole GFS did.

We have an easily driven 45 ft ketch which continues to surprise me as to how little sail it needs to make miles. She's not tender but we can reef down to a scrap of sail and she still carries on with great displacement type speeds for her length. This means we sail 90 % of the time with a #3 jib. Superb sail from one of the small lofts , this thing reefs really well and is heavy. It is literally a 5 to 50 knot sail. Inside that is a removable inner forestay which we hank our staysail and storm sail on. We tend not use it because by the time we need it or want it I'd prefer to not go

^ Legend. I was just trying to do that. Thats the Euro forecast, have a look at the GFS for the same time, SD. Er .. Puff.

Its not often you see such wildly divergent forecasts between GFS and ECMWF. Both speed and direction. EC says direct hit on Northland on monday. GFS says well out east and a lot earlier to our latitude too. A classic in the making .. who is right, the Euros or the North Americans? Roll up roll up place yer bets please. I tend to subscribe to GFS on serious stuff .

True .