muzled

What put you off coming home with 'straya to port IT?

Yep, buying a boat to me meant meant ruling out any overseas holidays for us. A choice I'm more than happy with, would much rather have my kids sailing around the gulf than going to Fiji for a week a year. 'don't leave town 'til you've seen the country'...

That could be made into a surf trip of epic proportions!.

Reckon if push came to shove that number would be lower though.

Nice. I was talking to a guy on our pier with a 36'er the other w/e, wished I'd asked him if I could jump on and take a nosey. He'd headed back to the UK a year or so back, went out to the Chathams for a week and then his motor blew up as he left so he had to spend two weeks punching into the wind to come back here.

For now I'm happy on the marina but then the cost of that rules out doing other stuff like a winter holiday in Fiji etc. Is that trade off worth it? I'm not sure longterm, but currently yes. There was a mooring up at Herald Island on TM for $30/week a while back, that's a whole lot less than the marina. (and one of the more sheltered spots from the wind). The GH apartment with marina setup is interesting, especially once retired.

Any updates for us 'Pogo dreamers' Dr Watson?

That is pretty good value, esp if you have a boat. Not quite as viable if you work in the city. Are there any ongoing costs with the berth or do the fees cover that? More than what BW/WH/GH charge in marina fees alone though?

I was looking at the Whitianga ones a few weeks back, def a great option once retired. Are there cheaper options than this at GH though? Still pretty pricey... http://www.trademe.co.nz/property/residential-property-for-sale/auction-1322821394.htm

I painted my 30'er earlier this year KM, I rang Gloss to get an idea of what it might cost and their quick quote worked out on the phone was $16k,+ GST. Gulp... I doubt we'll get much more than that for the boat in another 5 years if we sell it. (nothing against Gloss, they were very helpful) Total cost to do it all myself (and like you say, get someone around to squirt it) was $6K.

That's awesome, bloody good on him for getting stuck in! The guy turning up from Parnell I find a little odd but hey, I guess he's in there as well.

Unless you pay cash for your $245K boat it's not a $245K boat is it, pay that off over ten years and it's a $300k+ boat. Personally I think the $60-$80K, 30 year old boats are pretty good value, 2nd head be damned.

This is how you drive a boat! https://youtu.be/ghQ1mPEgITI

That's some crazy sh*t alright. What would happen if you just said to the DOC guy - we're here to have a picnic, we won't be walking anywhere else, but we're not leaving until we're ready to go. Do they actually have any 'power' to remove you?

Have the annual ownership fees at Bayswater just gone up? I'm sure a 12m berth was $4500'ish a year ago and now it's $5500. I'm on a 12m berth at BW, the guy we bought our boat off was paying $600/month, I said to the owner I would pay $450 max or leave, he dropped his price.

The first thing I noticed was the elevation gain. Must have been changes in the barometric pressure?

I had a friend who did it. One of those twin rig cats won apparently. His report - in the end, the wind was variable No wind at the start, then some weak northerly, then 5 hours completely still at the second buoy. After this, a proper easterly all the way to the end and back. One more wait in light airs before we crossed back to the eastern basin, and some good NWly for a proper sprint finish. All this is nicely visible on Strava! The winner took 10 hours, we got there in 35. Almost all boats had spinnakers or gennakers, we did not. We sailed all through the night directly downwin

Brilliant, thanks for posting. Read the book 25 years ago and was telling someone about it a few weeks ago.

Comedy at the press conference. Journalist to Spitball - Jimmy, we saw someone pedaling behind you today... Spitball - 'pauses', oh yeah it's just this hybrid system we've developed bla bla... https://youtu.be/aimY0BVt1Dg Be a brave man that bets against every boat having the bike system next time the cup comes around.

Aye, indeed, I think this was my fav part though https://youtu.be/IQ9O17s0AsA I'm interested to know how they'd go sailing up to the islands with that massive beam. I guess the advantage is you could probably do it in half the time of a 'normal' cruiser but it'd be pretty interesting punching into a heavy sea in 35 knots yeah? Never heard of them, I thought it might have been a Boreal although I thought their wait-list was (only) 2-3 years

Who/what design was it? (I've spent the last two evenings reading the Pogo blog on the SA site and need something else to read...)

oooh, nice! How long is the wait list?

Seems the council still want to be rid of the campground even though the local community was very clear they wanted to keep it. From Save the Campground FB page - OK, OK this is very frustrating and we all know it, but this is an important and critical part of the process. In short, the public (80%+) and the Local Board has said yes to a long term lease for the Holiday Park. BUT for that to happen and become legally possible in the context of the TAKAPUNA BEACH RESERVE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2013, a joke in itself when it came to public consultation (Chris Darby was part of it), a process of

MB, have a read of this for a bit more background on the campground/YNZ/HAT saga. (copy and pasted from Save the Campground FB page) Letter reads: Cr. Ross Clow, Feb 18th, 2017 Chair Finance and Performance Committee Auckland Council ross.clow@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz URGENT Dear Cr. Clow Meeting Feb 21 – Item 14 Funding For High Performance and Community Sailing I am most surprised to just learn that Yachting New Zealand have re-applied to Auckland Council for a high performance and community sailing centre funding as outlined by the officers report under Item 14 on your agenda for

MB I think you've missed the point here a bit. The opposition to the HPC at taka was 99.9% on the location that YNZ & HAT wanted to put it. Originally they wanted to put it beside the Takapuna yacht club, dug back into the side of the hill (I still think that's a great location), but then they realised the telecom internet cable comes in there and it was going to cost about $300K to move the cable. That wasn't an insurmountable task, Telecom and the North Shore Council were both open to it. But YNZ and HAT got on their high horse and said no, lets go over the road and get rid