Sunday afternoon in a breeze-free harbour
With my wife still in Norway I had little incentive to go home this weekend, so took the opportunity to spend the weekend in Sydney and muck around on the boat. The first task was to upgrade the GPS, so I visited my 4WDing associate, Brian at GPSOZ, and picked up a new GPSmap 76CSx plus a varied collection of RAM brackets, mounts and braces.
The next chore was to string up the spray skirt which Bob's wife had so professionally sewn up for me. Finally it was time to assemble it all on the AI and take it for a test drive.
Arriving at WSC late Sunday morning I met a couple of new AI owners trying to unjam their skew-wif mirage drive. Whilst out near Shark Island and under some power peddling, one side of the click-and-go and let go, lifting the drive on one side and jamming up the other side. With a bit of judicious pressure on the release lever I managed to free it.
By lunch time I had the spray skirt rigged and was ready to sail, however, I had left the battery drill and drill bits back at the flat - and without them I was unable to mount the new GPS on the new RAM bits. I decided to take a couple of the famous WSC sausage rolls and then nick back to the flat to get the tools.
I was back at the sailing club by 1:44. With the RAM mount installed on the gunwarl and the new GPS secured in its new mount I was on my way.
The afternoon was peaceful, with virtually no breeze. The keel boat races were almost a non-event with more than 2/3 of the fleet registereing DNFs at 4:30pm. Nevertheless, the crews appeared to enjoy the sun and relaxation whilst consuming vast quantities of beverage.
I decided to peddle across to Chowder Bay and check out the Bacino Kiosk which CGM indicated was a good source of a mid-trip caffien fix.
From there I peddled out towards Bradleys Head and then across the Harbour towards Rushcutter Bay. Halw way across a bit of a NEaster sprung up and I was sailing downwind at almost 2 kts. The wind sustained at almost 5 kts and I was able to sail across to Double Bay and on to Rose Bay, getting home to WSC and washing down the boat before dusk.
Trip Log:
Total distance: 6.5 NM
Maximum speed: 5.4 kts
Time moving: 2hr 27min
Time stopped: 9min
Moving average: 2.7 kts
Review of the GPSmap 76CSx and mounting arrangement will be published elsewhere later this week.
Makes even more sense when they are travelling from overseas and can't bring one with them.