Blowing away the midwinter blues...

I went round to see a neighbour on Saturday. I took my Rhum dinghy plans and the 1:10 model that I've made of the hull. He has a Sunburst dinghy and I wanted to check dimensions of his side seats to see if a similar layout was possible in the Rhum. It turns out that the slightly stretched version I intend to build will be identical in length and beam to the Sunburst. Not only is this good news for the layout of seats, it also means that I can potentially buy of-the-shelf spars and sails for the Rhum rather than get a custom set made, possible saving a few dollars along the way.

While I was round, Daniel invited me out on his big boat for a race the next day. So Mid-winter's day I was on a 33' racing/cruising yacht reaching at 8.5 knots in a 20 knot southerly blow around Auckland's harbour. There were only 2 boats in our none-spinnaker class, but we won on the line and on handicap. We also beat 3 spinnaker boats over the line, and they had a 5 minute advantage at the start. It was a beautiful clear and crisp day, and putting up with the cold was well worth it for a great day out on the water.

Off my Trolley

The kayak trolley has been providing me with lots of headaches, and the kayak with lots of scratches.

The Mk I version was hopeless, so I angled the bunks a bit to provide the Mk II, which also shed its load on the way to the beach.  The photo shows the more elaborate Mk III with wide, raised bunks set further forward on the boat to help with balance, and the bungee cords replaced by nylon cam-lock straps.  This also failed while taking the kayak down for a quick paddle out to 'VESPER', a schooner moored about 1 km away and which I originally suspected to be a remnant of New Zealand's fleet of trading scows.  I know now that it's not a true scow, but need to research a little more to see if there is any link at all to the scows of old.  Either way, I ended up carrying the kayak back, along with the trolley and was nearly late for a night out as a result.

The Mk IV trolley is sitting in the garage waiting to be tested, but as I write the rain is torrential and a gale warning is in force, so it will have to wait in the garage a little longer.

My building and boating activities have been somewhat curtailed of late.  For the last 4 weeks I've been acting as full time tour guide to my parents, over on a visit from the UK.  I did manage to get away yesterday evening however, to take part in a race on board my friend and neighbour's Beale 33' cruiser/racer.  Winds were up 15 - 20 knots and with only two of us on board, it was quite exciting.  We didn't do well, but that was mainly down to confusion at the start when the skipper accidentally reset his stop watch and so we had only the 1 minute gun to go by, crossing the start over 30 seconds late.  I learned a lot during the race though, and also managed to use some of what I've read over the past few months, all good practice for when I build my own boat.