Day 4 - Bay of Islands

The following day, in zero wind, and lots of sun, we decided to head to Urapukupku island, just a short motor away.  We pulled in to Paradise bay, which as the name would suggest, is another jewel in the Bay of islands. Hot and sunny, by the time we got there, it was good to go for another swim, pump up the paddleboard, and go exploring.

There were a good couple of mini islands and reef at the north end, so stroked my way over there, and checked it out, before heading back for lunch.  By mid afternoon, we had the first signs of some wind, so we setup, and sailed out, heading back to Russell for supplies and water, and New years eve. An easy 2 hour sail, reaching downwind, full main and jib in 15 knots, still with a easterly swell to our stern. When we arrived Russell was packed with boats.  We checked out the bay around the corner, also packed with boats, tenders everywhere, then decided to go an find a spot super close to the beach and pub.  We found a spot next to another trailer sailer (a Merlin 20) , and right in front of the Duke of Marlbrough pub !

The beach bottom was unfortunately loose pebbles, so our anchor did not hold very well, and after 3 attempts, and drifting close to other moorings, someone on the beach saw our plight, and offered us their mooring for the night which happened to be right next to us!

Now we could relax, and enjoy the evening, dinner, and some alcohol from the local 4 square, delivered by myself via our paddleboard tender!
Didn't quite make it to midnight, due to exhaustion, but Eileen woke me up in time..!

Day 3 - Bay of Islands

Next day, we sailed on a reach, downwind across open water, 1 metre swell across our sides, and throught gap between Moutrua and Motukiekie islands. Full sail and normal jib were the call. The wind went from 10 knots, from a NW direction, to 20 by the time we were half way across the stretch of water. By the time we reached the gap in the rocks between the islands, we were sailing at 6.5 knots, surfing up to 8.5 knots ! Not a bad turn of speed for a old trailer sailer, without a spinnaker up !

We pulled into Waiwhapuku bay, and decided it was a great spot to spend the night.Amazingly clear water, could see the anchor and chain on the bottom in 3m of water, approx 10m visibility when I went for a snorkle ! Lunch, a walk up to the top to take a couple of pictures, then an evening of reading and sleep.

 

 

 

Day 2 - Bay of islands adventure

Sailed back to Russell for supplies. Hot and sunny..

Was to be an easy day today, sailing up to Moturoa island, and through Kent passage from Russell. We had a good run, but with increasing wind on the nose, we were forced to pull into a very nice bay on the western side of Kents passage, and reef the sails. We decided it had picked up enough to have two reefs and the storm jib up.  Once we were sailing through the passage, we found it perfect, as we trucked upwind and once out of the passage, found we had good 5 knots of speed upwind, and as we got further up towards Purerua Peninsula, we could see the bay where Kerikeri cruising club is to the west and Wairoa bay to the right.  We stayed in Wairoa for the night, around 10 other boats.

Day 1 - Bay of Islands adventure

We packed up the boat, and trailered it up to Opua, Bay of islands on the 28th December.  We arrived in the evening around 6pm after battling holiday traffic, and taking the less hilly route, via Mangawhai and Waipu cove. Approx 260km, with a fuel economy of a miserable 15mpg !!

Opua Marina, in the early evening

Looking across Opua from the Opua cruising club.

We refuelled at Piahia, filled up both our petrol tanks for the outboard, and then headed back to Opua for a fantastically huge meal at the Opua cruising club, overlooking the water, and then slept on the boat, while on the trailer. Next morning was a super sunny day, and we wasted no time finishing rigging up and getting going.  The tide was dropping, and the forecast was for a stormy night..

We motored over to Piahia, then after studying our map, set sail, in increasing rain, for Motuarohia island (Robertson island).  The rain soon cleared, and then it was super sunny and humid again. We checked out Lagoon bay, but motored back to stay in Cooks cove for the afternoon, but it was very wavey, and had frequent visits by tour boats.  Not recommended as an anchorage ! We stayed in Cook cove till after dark, and just about asleep, but rocking around, possibly due to swell refracting around the island.  I took the brave/stupid move of pulling anchor, and motoring around to Lagoon bay navigating by GPS in the darkness.  What followed was a drama which started at midnight, with us dragging our anchor, and drifting out of the bay at almost 3 knots towing our anchor. Made a VHF call to the coast guard to discuss our dilemma, (not a mayday but a securite call) and I pulled the anchor up and motored back into the bay, with very poor visibility, trying not to hit any boats. My fears relayed to the coastguard came true, after reanchoring, we dragged again, this time out the other side of the bay. We had plenty of scope but the anchor would not bite. After another call to the coastguard, and listening on channel 16 and hearing of another yacht that had broke anchor and hit another boat, we realised we were not the only ones in trouble. Another call to Coastguard reported a ferry had broken away from it mooring too ! The final suggestion from the coastguard was to beach our boat, which we tried, motoring at 5 knots on to the beach with the keel and rudder up, but the wind blew us straight back out into the water, and almost quicker than I could let out the anchor and tie it off.  On the second attempt to beach the boat, I noticed a rock wedged in the flukes of our danforth anchor. This was stopping it from opening and biting properly ! Finally, after a tense half hour, we held, and I fell asleep with exhaustion.  Coastguard showed up at 3am, to check on us, in howling wind, and rain. We woke in the morning to a perfect sunny day, anchored 3m off the beach, as seen in the photo below.
The learnings from this were : a 8S danforth anchor even with 6m of chain and heaps of rode was not suitable for 30 knots of wind with a 6m boat. It is only a 4kg anchor, and as discussed in this article , the catenary effect drops away in strong wind, and you rely completely of the angle of the scope, and the anchor design. The danforth anchor is only effective when the angle is low, and once the chain is tight, it can pull out, and does not reset like newer designs like the Rocna. In hindsight, a 6kg Rocna or Sarca type anchor would have given us a much better hold.

Weekend day trip

Weather forecast was looking great for the weekend, so went for a day sail with friends Chris and Sanya. Forecast was 15 -20 knot NW possible rain showers.  Sounded ok ...
We sailed upwind over to Motuihe and tacked up the channel in about 15 knots, full main and jib, sailing well.  Had a rain squall around 11am, then the wind died and we were bobbing around the back of Motuihe.  Once the wind resumed, we flew a little spinnaker for fun, and took off down the back of Motuihe, and Sanya served apptizers while we sailed downwind.  We stopped in Calypso bay for lunch, bit of sun, and after lunch everyone had a bit of a snooze on the boat !
There was a rain squall or two while we had lunch, but thought nothing of it in our calm peaceful bay. Once we decided to head out, with a reef in the sail, just with the jib up we found out how windy it was outside the bay... 30 knots? After a bit of indecision, and the boat being blown downwind, I gave up and motored us back to the shelter of land. The consensus was to head back, but just the storm jib up, and motor running.
This ended up being the perfect setup, to make headway up wind, and as comfortable as possible.
A relative term it seems, as that NW blowing down the harbour was causing some 1.5m rolling waves !
Super wet ride back, everyone drenched, I had to put the storm boards in to stop the boat filling with water! I'm sure Chris got some photos, but it was a pretty wild ride ! It took some 2-3 hours to motor all the way, the other boat in the gulf seemed to have about the same amount of difficulty out there, seriously pounding through waves!. Made if back to the estuary and Half moon bay, against a very strong outgoing tidal stream..

Multi-hull musing

Been having such fun with the Farr 6000, I almost forgot to turn off my alerts on Trademe.  Luckily, I didn't, and my growing desire for speed like I used to get from kitesurfing is still there. My original plan was to buy a Farr 5000, which I could fit in my carport at home in winter, and not have a big thirsty car to tow it.  The Farr 6000 definately doesn't match up that well, but makes a great waterborn caravan.

"As for room inside theres the age old adage of you can have 2 

of three things grace, pace or space"

Following on front that quote.. here's a fine looking boat, a Farrier TT18, the original trimaran that started the revolution!
These are so rare, that there are no photos apart from Mr Farriers original picture anywhere on the internet. Also rare is having any sort of cabin on a tri of this size, the only one I know of is another homebuilt but more modern design, a Scarab 18. This Farrier TT18 is kind of a pocket cruiser, ideal for two in the cockpit, and one friend lazing on the tramp..!

The previous owner Graham Wheeler who is a big Trimaran fan has posted about some of his other toys here. 'Tranquilo' is sparsely equipped at the moment.

Graham spent countless hours of his time restoring Tranquilo to its current state:
- Removing rot around the anchor locker
- Re glassing the tops of the amas and beams
- Epoxy sealing the bilge area
- Replacing bolts and redoing bolt holes with epoxy fillets
- Repainting the hulls and interior from yellow to white.
- He installed a couple of winches, and new jammers.
- Ventilation ports installed on front deck and under seats to stop damp and moisture 
- Centreboard mechanism revised so it works better and easier to use with perspex window 
- Galv Trailer(2003) customized to suit and support the amas when folded, new winch
- LED nav lights
- New halyards
- started working on a spinnaker prod, for attachment of gennaker / spinnaker

It has a good selection of sails, including fully battened main.  All weighing in at under 700kg with the trailer. It sleeps two in its current configuration, and its a tight squeeze, but nevertheless it has 2 bunks long enough for me to lie down.  The previous owner in Hamilton modified the stern area, cutting away the large box section, making getting to the outboard and climbing on board easier.
It has what seems an appropriate amount of sail area for the gulf, not a racing size sail area.
I guess this means it won't be really fast, but should be a lot quicker than the equivalent length mono hull. Another good thing is having a traveler right at the back of the boat means the mainsheet is clear of the cockpit, so a bimini could be fitted and used while sailing for protection in our NZ summer.

Sailing it 
Well I only sailed it a few times, and I am not familar with masthead rigs, but its light on the tiller, sails itself, and it cuts through the water beautifully. Once up planing, the ride smooths out great.  Easy to launch, doesn't need much water, light to handle. Minus points; the cockpit is woefully small and this type of boat suits a fractional setup not a masthead. Needs all 3 head sails during an average summer day, as the wind increases. It definately has a hump to get over to transition to planing speed, because the main hull is a displacement shape.   In light wind, it drifts along great on the lightest of breezes.

Items for attention

- Backstay tensioner arrangement needs revising.
- Rudder/centreboard needs repainting
- Boat is currently anti-fouled, but in future might be good to take back, and primer, and top coat, depending on if it is moored on the water, or stored in the trailer park.
- No topping lift currently.. grrr..
- Needs a VHF radio..
- check for leaks around pivot bolts.

Mmm..beamy  !

Some muppet parked a boat next to my carport !

*Update *  - As I now have two boats, one had to go.. unfortunately the tri isn't as practical proposition as the Farr 6000, as it is really only good for two, and is not practical at the ramp @ half moon bay. I also don't really like the masthead rig with winches on a boat this small, and its not big enough for cruising with two. So the Farrier tri is going, after only a few sails out in the gulf.  Sold to a gentleman down in Christchurch.

The only other known Farrier TT18 was in Whakatane, but was recently sold on trademe for 5K to a buyer in Christchurch.. photos here.. Had some rot, and no outboard..also a masthead rig. Looked like it had been antifouled and stayed on the water a lot too.

Not in as good condition as my one, which had throughly been epoxy sealed, was dry (despite being stored on the water) and largely finished but needed new sails and a bottom job to really extract some performance. More pictures here.

Epic 3 day sail around Waiheke Island

60 nautical miles in 3 days!

Day 1 - After bring the boat out of storage for winter, our first sail for the season was on Labour weekend.  We left Half Moon bay around 12pm, sails up at the mouth of the estuary. We realised we had forgotten the top batten for the main, but after some hunting I found a spare from the old mainsail, so we used that one. Lucky! We sailed down the western side of Waiheke. and past Huruhi bay and onto Omaru bay. Wind was 8-15 knots NW. With the wind at our backs, I decided to put the spinnaker up, for a easy run all the way down. We were moving faster than all the other yachts out around the gulf, but there always seem to be some yachts that just motor all the way! Having a light displacement boat is a definite advantage in light winds on the gulf.

With all our supplies and kit, the boat seemed a little heavier than usual, and you definitely notice the speed pickup when one person is on the foredeck, as the transom does not drag as much.  We averaged about 6 knots, hitting 7 knots a few times while surfing downwind.

Approaching Omaru bay, first inlet sheltered from the NW.

Eileen fixing us some tea..

 Day 2 - Was still early when we left, wind was already up @ 8am.  15 knots Northerly with a change to SW. Was planning to stop at Man'o'war bay, but we were so quick upwind, we sailed right past it!  I had my phone GPS on logging our speed, 5.8 knots on the upwind leg, not bad ! Recorded some video from sailing on the east side of Waiheke, sailing past Man'o'war bay in about 15 knots. Youtube Link is here

Got around the corner, then a couple of tacks upwind, and then into Hooks bay and dropped the anchor. Lunch consisted of some tasty hot grilled cheese and bacon rolls ! Spent a nice sunny afternoon there, and mucked around on our stand up paddleboard, and took a couple of photos.

We had planned to leave Hooks bay in the afternoon, however a front coming across caused a big wind change, had us motoring back into the bay, after seeing a heap of whitecaps around the corner, and after a hour or so lots of boats came in running for cover, into Hooks bay.  You can kind of see the unsettled sky in the background of the photo below. We decided to stay on in Hooks bay, we had plenty of food and drink, so we settled in for the night.

Goldie is the smallest of boats travelling around the gulf!

Testing our boat tender / inflatable SUP!

He's going for distance... he's going for speeed

Homely huh! Complete with matching cushions

Studying the cruising guide

Sunrise at Hooks Bay.. finally a peaceful nights sleep.. well a couple of hours.

Day 3 - Woke early, and the bay was completely still.  Prepared to sail out early, I'm sure the wind will be up later.  Full sail and jib up when we left.  Went around the corner into a perfect 10-12 knot breeze.

Morning glass

Sailed to Oneroa, beating up the coast from Hooks bay, pulled into one bay half way up to put a reef in the main.  That wind just kept picking up ! Continued on up to Oneroa, where we would meet our friends Wing and Carl who were joining us for a sail back to the mainland. Prepared for the worst, we knew it was windy, despite the ongoing Metservice reports unhelpfully still forecasting an afternoon of 15 knots.

Two reefs in the main, and storm jib up, we beached the boat, and picked up our friends. All aboard and off around the corner of Waiheke, into..... 20 knots...!  Not making much headway we decided to swap the storm jib with the normal working jib. Carl did the honours, up on the foredeck in difficult conditions.  The wind picked up soon enough, while we tacked upwind, making good progress.

About half way up the Motuhi channel we started getting squalls, 25 knots ! Up by Motuihi, we had big short waves, and gusts of 30 knots. (verified by the land based windmeters later). The only other boat was a 40ft motorsailor with a large bridge cabin, with plumes of spray coming off the bow, while tacking upwind in sync with us. Survival conditions... the bow of the boat was launching off the tops of waves and crashing down violently, we were all hanging on, and the boat was heeling wildly in the gusts. We found one tack smoother than the other, so we went on a steady starboard tack all the way up over to Beachlands (an extra few nautical miles!) to get out of the nasty wind and swell, then reach across to the Tamaki estuary. 

Dropped the sails in the shelter of Music point cliffs, and then motored home. Mission.... No photos to show you, no way we were getting the camera out in that ! You'll just have to believe me... !

Ready to go..

Back on the water this weekend.. trailer back together, and boat tucked away at Half moon bay for the summer.... Towed it up from the farm successfully (1 hour, over the bombay hills), no drama.  I've installed a transmission oil cooler and new rear shocks to complete my towing setup. Despite my Nissan having almost 200,000km on it, it tows like a champ.
Labour weekend(October 25th) is coming up fast, time for a last effort to get it all ready.

The complete rig !

Goldie - the baby Farr - Note the gap between the guards and the tires now

Summer plans

Well, the boat is almost ready, never ending little bits to do, to improve it, but axles should be back on the trailer next week, and I've been thinking and discussing what to do over summer.  I'm not going to be out every weekend this summer, if its good surfing, I'm dropping everything and going.  I'll leave the boat for the onshore crappy days!

• The NZ trailer yacht nationals are coming up on 9th November, so all going to plan, should be able to head down to Rotorua/Lake Rotuiti for the weekend, to meet some other Farr 6000 owners, and refine sailing technique for these boats. 
• Sail up to Kawau - a possibility on a long weekend with favorable weather. Would really like to install a Raymarine ST1000 autopilot when doing long legs of sailing, time permitting. It is a 30 nautical mile journey each way.
•  New years - Bay of Islands - trailer up to Opua, and week long cruise around Bay of islands, Cavalli passage, Whangaroa, and around hole in the rock at Cape Brett, and down to Whangamumu harbour, weather permitting. Stopping to Opua for supplies.

This summer, I will be GPS logging my speed, and have a speed sensor setup so I can track our sailing speed and progress.
My boat has a hull speed of 5.85 knots, so in ideal conditions, Kawau in 5 hours is possible. It could also take 8 hours !!  The Farr is a semi-displacement design, which straddles the line as far as light wind performance and stronger wind planing. It can be forced to go over hull speed, and I've heard up to 10 knots (22km/h)  driven hard is possible. More likely is a mix of reaching @ 6 knots and upwind of 4 knots in most conditions. When there is too much sail up, the beamy Farr can start dragging, and can be crawling @ 3 knots when sailed on its ear !  With the lighter outboard, I'm expecting Goldie to sail a bit cleaner, with less turbulence from the stern, very noticeable with four onboard.

DIY weekend #5

Achieved a lot today, finished disassembling the duratorque trailer axles, ready to be refurbished. One bearing was clearly on the way out, the grease was a bit grey, instead of purple, and had fine metal particles through it.
I'm getting the duratorque half axle suspension units overhauled, as part of my winter plan.  It's a bit of a pain, Trailcom Auckland have removed the suspension rubbers, and now I'm waiting for them to come back from JetBlast sandblasters, before getting larger axles welded on, with larger hubs/bearing assemblies, then re-galvanized, and then back to Trailcom for re-rubbering. Should last another 20 years then..!

Old hubs, and bearings

19 October - Finally got the axles back, looking as good as new.  The interesting thing was the unloaded position on these axles was around 30 degrees, much less than the standard duratorques you can purchase from Trailcom, so these must have had the swing arms welded for a low trailer height. It does mean that the loaded position is horizontal.  Low trailer ride height = easier launching !

Below is a pic of the installed suspension. Bought new hubs and bearings to match the new OD of the axles, and make the axles compatible with new trailer hardware. The old stub axles were 1 1/4 inch, (31mm), new ones are 39mm..

Refurbished duratorques, new larger diameter stub axle, hubs and bearings

Got around to installing the Ritchie V-537 bulkhead compass, finally picked a location.  Its a bit more difficult on these boats as the side panels of the cockpit are removable, so you can't mount anything there without losing the ability to remove them, and it is one of the trademark features of these boats. I had to move the power switchboard slightly to accommodate the placement of the compass,which is offset to the left slightly to clear the arc of the winch.  I've also had a handheld compass donated to me by my friend Evan, which will be perfect for taking bearings of landmarks, and triangulating our position.

Also got around to mounting the fishfinder transducer in a more suitable location, inside the hull, underneath the sink unit, firing straight through the hull.  I fixed it using window silicone sealant, but it needs testing in the water to see how well it works, both for depth and picking up fish!

Finally, looked at the outboard mounting board, and decided to replace it, as it was de-laminating after the boat got filled with water during a winter storm. I could do a better job with some a offcut of 18mm tanalized ply. Cut to shape, painted, and fitted. Replaced the bolts which correct length and type, and fitted with sealant.

June Trip to Europe

During my holiday for a friends wedding in Europe, I found time to include visiting my old friend, who lives near a fjord in Denmark.  We went sailing on his 30ft Danish keel boat, in great spring weather.

Its an old IOR design from early 80's called a Albin Ballad, with fin keel, and massive furling headsail with big overlap.

We saw 6.5 knots upwind on the speed log, and 8 on a reach!

Winter DIY progress..

New squabs and interior fitout progress..

While I was at it, installed a new Cobra VHF radio from MrMarine

An improvement on the old trim...

Winter downtime DIY

The winter list ....

Now I'm back from holiday, time to knock out a few items :

• check trailer bearings- have bearing buddies on them, they still seem fine after a summer of dunking in salt water (although the grease was not new when I got the boat) 

• Fix cockpit drain leak - 29/06 - done - Was a two person job, couldn't do it without Eileen! Installed new tubing and drain sockets resealed, removed the rivets !?(who rivets things into fiberglass?) and sealed with 3M 4200 sealant, with S/S screws to hold in place while setting
•  Make a small table for use inside and in cockpit (still working on this..19/10)
• Sew some new covers for the squabs - material acquired from Spotlight...found informative weblink on making them: http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4322/sew-the-new-box-pillow  (25/08 - Finished !!)
• Refurbish the duratorque suspension, repaint, new bearings so can do a road trip up north over summer.
• Polish hull....07/08 - Done.. the white hull came up well, for a 30 year old boat, the gelcoat was in great condition.

Duratorques, off for a paint/service. There is still a tiny bit of paint on the hub carriers..!

New outboard!

On a plus note, I did manage to do some wheeling and dealing on trademe.co.nz, and I spotted a barely used auxiliary Mercury 5hp 2 stroke long shaft outboard for sale and managed to acquire it for a very reasonable price.

The old Suzuki 8hp 2 cylinder motor was fairly reliable, smooth and clean burning but seemed to fail to start at the worse time, and seemed quite thirsty too. On top of that, it weighed 29 kg, and was quite heavy to lift on the tilt bracket, and clashed with the transom pushpit. It was definitely due for a service. It was one of the best motors back in 1998 when it was purchased, and is still quite light when you consider a current Mercury 8hp 2 stroke with only a single cylinder is 28kg.The lightest 5hp 4 stroke singles are also around 27-28kg.

I sold the motor recently and I bought a new Mercury. It only weighs 22kg for the long shaft version. Less weight on the transom equals less drag and 5hp is all you need for my size boat - with the correct prop.I've tested the 5hp in the water, and the difference in noise is minimal, vibration minimal, and the best thing is it pull starts to idle, unlike the old one, which revved its head off, and you had to slam the choke in before it rev'd its head off and settled down to a even idle with throttle adjustment.

In NZ no-one sells saildrive outboards designed for displacement boats in NZ, so the props are all of planing boat design. I have seen a lot of really big outboards on the back of trailer sailers, probably because they have experienced the lack of power with smaller motors. This is only due to the motor being incorrectly propped, so the motor cannot reach the ideal rpm/max power that the outboard can deliver. The new Mercury outboard should drive my boat fine, but unfortunately the prop is a 8" pitch, it is really only suitable for a planing dinghy.
The other problem I had with the suzuki (with it's 7" pitch prop) was it would still push the boat along quite well even just above idle, making coming into the dock slowly enough very difficult, you can't put it in reverse to put the brakes on, it just spins the boat round ! Also had a bit of prop walk to contend with.
I did some searching, and found Mercury/Blackmax/Quicksilver make a high thrust prop for displacement boat applications (Part number 48-812951A02). More googling and I had the part number, and a price. Turns out that saildrive outboards are more common in the UK, and found a new one on ebay.co.uk.
Its a 8 3/8 x 6" pitch prop, compared to the original which is 7 4/5 x 8" pitch.  You can see the difference in this picture. The original prop is on the right. The blades on the new prop are also a fatter profile, with even taper front edge and back edge. Luckily I was going to the UK and managed to pickup the prop in my travels, as they are hard to come by and very expensive in NZ.

Have yet to try it on the boat, but I'm expecting less prop walk, and less fuel consumption. It may not drive the boat over hull speed in flat water, but when it's rough, it will work a whole heap better. I've heard of  boats with 5hp and high thrust props helping out larger boats and giving them a tow home no problem!  The other plus is that I could possibly use this outboard on the back of a dinghy, as it is so light and has a internal fuel tank.