Background - Flingtime

This account of our sailing ‘expedition’ is a compilation of impressions, day-by-day blow of events with pictures to help re-kindle the memories for years to come. It was not all plain sailing and some lessons, reminders and possible improvements are incorporated. The idea is to tell it as it was with the many highlights and the few lowlights. The reality is that we have so many pictures that it has expanded into a photo blog. The intention to do a photo book remains but that can happen later...

We met quite a few friendly sailing folks out there, swapped stories and toughed out some rough conditions together alone. The diversity of vessels and watery lifestyles is great. No matter how one plans to cruise, no two situations will be even remotely the same be it experience, age, size, speed, diet, next destination, luck with crabbing and fishing, or whatever. If one is open minded and willing to learn then there is no end in sight. For example, we thought our trolling rig was good enough, strong enough, cheap enough and would do the job. Several experienced fishermen helped set it up. After losing several lures and not quite landing a big Mackeral we thought it was just a matter of time before we could talk about our catch and share some fillets. Then we met Kevin whose rig was so practical and effective that we just did it all again from scratch. I helped him improve his Raymarine system set-up and explained some of the less obvious details,  and he sorted out trolling rig from scratch. Helpful hints from solid experience abound out there on the water. Relaxed casual conversations on the beach or at sundowners explore sorts of topics and sets one thinking....

In our case we had been sailing for many years and done a few short passages with friends. We have been sailing Flingtime for 10 years but once again it was mostly day trips or multi-day trips around Moreton Bay. A previously planned voyage to Rockhampton never made it past the early planning stages.  Time waits for no one and now we were in our 60’s and pretty fit and healthy, and ‘retired’ it was now or maybe never.
Preparation for the voyage commenced a year before departure. The mid-May departure date was set based on the expected weather conditions for sailing north from the Gold Coast combined with a mental picture of the significant amount of work to be thoroughly  prepared. The list of things to do escalated rapidly when our insurers required a full survey and some of the Navman instrumentation I installed 8 years earlier was intermittently failing. The general survey questioned the capability of the large saloon windows to handle a wave over the bow and the rig surveyor recommended an age related replacement of the standing rigging except for the spars which were still in very good condition. A couple of years ago, the steering failed due to a turnbuckle snapping. It had corroded internally and snapped at just the wrong time as a Moreton Bay ferry was approaching. I did not want a repeat on a much grander scale, half way up the coast, as happened to an old friend some years earlier. Stainless steel has this reputation.... So re-rig it was.
The main halyard had failed a year or so back so all the running rigging was replaced and I picked up the fine art of splicing double braid which made for a much neater job.
The original jib and main sails were about 12 years old and were never the finest of cuts so these were replaced with top quality Dacron cloth. The cut of the main was improved and the reefing points were much deeper with the third reef for storm conditions (30% remaining area).
The conventional spinnaker was still in good shape as was the rarely used storm jib.
Deborah had had trouble with the effort required to set or release the main sail using the 4:1 double sheet/bridle system so it was upgraded to a 4:1/8:1 endless loop arrangement. Much more rope but well worth it and the benefit of full boom control for safe gybing remained.
After looking at a number of options, none of them particularly attractive, the windows were internally braced with strong (removable) 2x1inch SS bars.
Then there was the main anchor. It was a generic CQR, had trouble penetrating weed but was generally OK. It held firm in 45 knots on a few occasions but one felt that it was near its limit on those occasions. To cut a long story short, the new primary anchor is a Manson Supreme with no swivel in the line. A very experienced sailing friend suggested a reef pick so the biggest one I could find was reluctantly added at the last minute. Reluctantly because the amount of cruising kit was mounting up and I knew this was a trap for light cat cruisers. Both of us are lapsed scientists and we tend to get nto the nitty-gritty detail when it comes to planning and executing a project. Not much (maybe not any?) in the way of provisioning or equipping happened by accident.