Getting out there

CP about 400 miles from Sydney.
Hope to depart Gold Coast tomorrow morning.

Benn
Looks great. Hope the budget stayed under control for you.
Bon voyage!

Brian, I hope you said that tongue in cheek

Benn

OK, I edited the post and added a smilie

Well we are away.
Departed Gold Coast City Marina this morning after taking bunkers. Cleared the Seaway at 1100 hrs and heading south for Sydney.
Bit of breeze on the port quarter so have the main and jib up doing 8.6 knots and fuel consumption is down.
Should be between the heads Friday afternoon.
Looks like Capn Nick and myself will have a good trip

That's a good speed for a long trip. Did you make any changes to the prop?
Fair winds, stay safe.

Definitely go for PropSpeed Brian. It's bluudy marvellous. I got 3+ years out of my last coating, and it still almost looked good enough to just hose down and drop back in, and I'm down here in the bay with no fresh water coming by like you in the river. Not that you would get a lot of that down at Rivergate, I realise.

Great news Benn. Glad the yard work is in your wake. Good to hear your putting that new laundry straight to work

Peter B said:

Definitely go for PropSpeed Brian. It's bluudy marvellous. I got 3+ years out of my last coating, and it still almost looked good enough to just hose down and drop back in....

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Thanks, that`s very persuasive Peter. I`m about to antifoul, seriously considering Propspeed to stop the sealife colonizing the running gear. I heard it gets pricey to do prop/shaft/skeg with twins, but 3 years+ makes it economic, especially considering the other benefits.

Port Macquarie and steaming south.
last night was pretty crappy, at one stage we had turned and headed North west at slow revs just to get a bit of quiet, then back on course and have slowly built up speed again.
Weather has improved and even with last nights disruption will still be on schedule for entry in the heads tomorrow at 1300 hrs.
Cheers
Benn

Ben how long will you be in Sydney, would like to come down to say hello.

Andy,
berthing at the Spit this afternoon , under the bridge at 1315 hrs.
Will be here for about 2 weeks, would be a pleasure to meet up with you.
Cheers
Benn

First morning in Sydney.
Arrived at the Spit Bridge at 1200 hrs after a goodnight at sea.
Had a loan of someone's mooring as we waited for the bridge to open at 1315 hrs.
Tied up at marina by 1345
John Eastway (Flemingo) came down as the cleaning was completed spoof to the Middle Harbour YachtClub for a couple of beers a couple of other friends joined us later so you can see where that went .
John is taking Flemingo down to the wooden boat festival but leaving later .
A few jobs to do and John is going to put me in touch with his resident shipwright , Trawler Forum members great contacts to have.
Here for a couple of weeks before heading off for Hobart.

Hi Ben,

I dropped down to the boat today, you were off somewhere. I had a good look at Tidahapah, it's a terrific boat you must be very proud of her.

I don't think I can catch up before you go south as I have an appointment in Brisbane on Tuesday, and not sure when I will be back in Sydney. Enjoy Bass Strait!

Andy,
Sorry I missed you.
Gayle and I were off to visit and old friend for the afternoon.
Will catch up on the way north next year as I want to spend some quality time cruising around the Harbour and Pittwater.
Cheers
Benn

Sydney departure is getting close.
2 nd member of crew arrives tomorrow and weather permitting we will be off.
The Boss flew home yesterday after an absolute terrific Sydney Harbour cruise on Flemingo with John.
He went out of his way to show us around so next time back we will do a little bit of exploring ourselves and also head up to Pittwater for a couple of weeks.
John also put me on to some good people down here , Shipwright and rigger so I could get a few bits and pieces done before heading further south.
Once again thanks John

Cheers
Benn

It was an absolute pleasure to have you both on board, Benn.

Weather looks ok for the run south for the next couple of days.

Departed Sydney yesterday afternoon and made a slow passage south to Jervis Bay where we dropped anchor at 0330 hrs this morning .
Just having a break and checking the weather before heading off down to Eden where we will wait for a nice 3 day weather window to cross Bass Straight.
Everything is running nicely and had a nice motor sail yesterday afternoon for about 4 hrs
Cheers
Benn

Tidahapah said:

Departed Sydney yesterday afternoon and made a slow passage south to Jervis Bay where we dropped anchor at 0330 hrs this morning .

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Benn,
Fond memories of Jervis Bay as a kid, surfing a 12ft timber runabout into the long beach north of Vincentia, going towards Huskisson, and rowing back out to do it again. And swimming at "Nudist Beach".
Jervis is a beautiful place, where did you anchor?

Nice run down the coast last night.
Good NE breeze for a while and then it dropped out to light.
Nice following sea and arrived in Eden at 0530 this morning.
Will stay here for a bit and check out the weather before doing the dash across the paddock.
It is about 320 NM from here to Wineglass Bay , this is my proposed first stop in Tassie.

New nav gear is terrific once you get used to the differences from using a computer based plotter.
The HD Radar is great used it coming into Eden this morning with a bit of fog around.

Nice anchorage behind the breakwater.
Cheers
Benn

I see you're off already Benn.

Nice timing all 'round. Bon Voyage!

I would love to see some pics Of your adventure as you go

OK we have reached Tassie.
Anchored up in Maria Is. been a good trip down, faster than expected.
Jervis bay in for 7 hrs then out to Eden. In for 5 hrs weather window looked good out and across the paddock.
All went well for the first few hrs.landed a couple of small yellow fin tuna , 12 kg each, sushi for the next few days then got the welcome to bass Strait reminder and got hammered for a few hours. I just thought there goes or weather predictions.
Any how it got better and we rolled our way south with a nice 2.5 mtr swell with a bit of crappy sea on top. Wineglass Bay was out so continued on to Maria Is where we will stay and R & R drink and fish for a couple of days before heading up the Derwent to Hobart.
It has been a good leg with a couple of work mates .
Happy days , Tidahapah is in Tassie
We are having a bit of a celebration Moet and Flathead fishing doesn't get much better.
Hope to post some pictures later we certainly covered some miles over the past few days.
Cheers
Benn

Congratulations Benn. Visited Maria Island during a cycle ride Launceston to Hobart. Beautiful well preserved place, though the old jail we slept in overnight was interesting. I hear the recently released Tasmanian Devils, intending to give them a tumor disease free refuge, is not working so well for the ground dwelling birdlife, incl the Cape Barren geese and penguins. Looking forward to the photos.

A few statistics
We traveled 583.6 NM from Sydney , 77 .33 hrs steaming and 17.5 hrs at anchor.
used 973 lt fuel
12.5 lts per hr at 7.5 knots , pretty happy with that.
1005 NM since leaving the gold Coast.
Gardner running very nicely at 1250 RPM and using about 1 lt of oil/24 hrs

Good on ya Benn, that's a trip I have got on my list when my kahunas grow considerably larger and I can find crew that will trust me. 12.5 litres average from the old Gardner at 7.5 knots is fantastic in those seas.
Cheers, Adam

Congrats Ben. Must feel really good to have crossed. Fuel consumption is excellent. Have you worked out how much the 'sail assist' contributes to that?

Brian,
Did not use sails much on the trip as we are mostly tug boat people.
The first day out of Sydney we had the sails up for about 5 hours .
The rest was power boatin, pluggin along as we we do well.
Cheers
Benn

How about some pic's Ben.

OK Andy. I am on a new computer and still on the UP learning curve but will try soon.