Freedom GBE

"Interestingly, while the engine was running, the raw water flow out the exhaust went from a good heavy flow to a much lighter flow and hence why i checked the engine." Water must have backed up into your exhaust and into the piston chamber. Water wont compress. I would put money on the new head gasket.

The number one is tied to a bridle near the back of the engine pod beam that we can adjust from side to side and up and down. The number two has a block on the main beam we don't bother adjust during a race,

Aren't leaners supposed to be all luxury. How are you supposed to serve a cup of tea?

Paid and sent the email. The email bounced back with an error message saying it did not arive at some of the recipients, Anyway we will be on the start. What radio channel is the committee going to use?

Lubricate with chain oiil on all moving parts, most often on the main slides, hanks and center boards. It doesnt evaporate like CRC and doesnt dry out like grease.

Freeedooom

Agreed. Except I always like what Erice says. You are very special Erice.

Nice. 7 hours and seventeen minutes in the CC, that is a fast cruiser.

At 2 minutes 40 we zip across.

Freedom made it in one piece. The old wooden GBE is now around 43 years old. We saw some good speed in the gusts. Reaching on choppy seas, angle of death, smacking into waves . We got in before dark. Well done to all the 8.5s especially Lucifer, driving it like they stole it. Good weekend all round.

They reported 5+ meter waves. If it crashes through the hatch, I can imagine the force of the water and air inside the boat will be twice the height of the wave. Like the kinetic forces in the blow hole at Muriwai, it spews out water twice the height of the wave. That will pop any window. On some stormwater outfalls on the beach we construct air releases to stop our heavy cast iron covers from popping. Might be worth having hinge type hatches closed on a mechanical fuse and a spring to let air out but not let water in.

We left Fiji on a fastish cruising cat a few days earlyer than Essence. The forecast on Predict wind when we left Fiji was moderate westerlies for the last few days of our trip. The forecast changed about three days in to our trip, we got light easterlies all the way instead. We still had a dream ride down. We could see this storm on the predict wind maps when were about half way, from memory it was following about 400 miles behind us. Essence had possibly left Fiji already when the forecast changed. Then hoping to go around the east of the storm. Waves could have slowed them down.

I look on the water for danger, seldom look up, Anchor lights, steaming and even stern light are useles to me. Red port and green SB light on the bow is all that I look for. The new LED ones are superb compared to the old bulb ones.

100mb pressure drop in the centre of a tornado could suck the cat straight up then the wind of the twsiter then sent it over the pier. Similar to In the states you often see pick up trucks being tossed into the air. A13 tons object being tossed up like that must be a record.

We have no way of charging our small 5amp hour battery on our boat.

C Cat 3 is only used for short coastal racing. Racing. We dont cook on board , got our hands full. Engine fuel and outboard is in central pod which is surounded by water. Unles we fire a flare at the petrol tank. catching fire is near impossible. Cant afford a proper life raft. We have to carry a blow up tender tied to the front trarmp which catches the wind when flying a hull upwind and sends the bow under water downwind, They are a hazard. When we cruise we usually dont take a tender and pull the boat up close to the beach.

Cat 3 Very happy that elctronic flares are now acceptable. Reduces the risk of fire in my opinion, well done. When is the next review? Four kilos of fire extinguishers. We dont have an engine room, 500 grams by the switch pannel and a few buckets in each hull is all we need. Liferafts are a waste of time on our wooden catamaran. Never used our echosounder. Our bilge pumps always blocks up. A bailer and bucket is much more reliable and should be an option. Almanac is just clutter.

Multis are easyer to change course down than Monos. Monos lean a lot and the rudder is on the edge. We have two rudders one is usually in the water. We never cleat the traveler and ours is 4m wide, it never runs out of track due to apperent breeze, it needs to be freed instantly in case of a gust and change in wind direction. Dipping a boat does make you go a lot faster, but you can see where you are going. Going above another boat is not an option, we cant see the lower hull and pinching kills VMG.

The harbour is only getting narrower, more boats and faster. 50m is silly and not possible to enforce. Saturday afternoons, Wedesday night races and Coastal Classic start are days that there are large fleets of racing boats and its only been a good wind this saturday. That is less than 1% of the time the harbour is used predominatly for racing the rest of the time its cruising boats and ferrys. Ferrys have been very obliging and I would buy them a drink any time. Some of these large displacement, trying to plane launches are not nice. A multihull is more likely to dip a boat, o

Would the height of a mast be more practical a distance to keep from a cruising boat? A wave and little practice dip to show that we have seen you and are in control and all maybe? There is very little wake behind a multihull.

The little tri most likely seen you well before you saw him. I agree 1 meter is too close to a cruising boat. Persoanlly enjoy a fly by from another multihull but hey thats why we are mad.