A quick report on the trip back from Horizon Shores Marina (Steiglitz, Qld) to Greenwell Point, bringing Sea Biscuit to her new home.
Small ship: Sea Biscuit: Cecil Boden design wooden
trawler, 39'6" (12.0m), 15 tons,
Perkins 6.354
single diesel engine, 38" manganese
bronze prop. Nav
gear below in a following post.
Raw stats:
Distance: 550nm
Time: 62 hours
Average speed 8.9kn
Fuel consumption: ~550 litres
Before anyone calls BS, we
rode the East Australian
Current 90% of the way; it's running at 4kn S presently. Two on board, and we received regular
weather updates from my brother, the scientist "Land Captain"; these received via InReach SMS
service.
1.5–2 hour watches, 24/7. All
food prepared and heated on board.
A relatively quiet
weather window (our last attempt was thwarted by Tropical Cyclone Owen).
The East Australian
Current (EAC) largely follows the continental shelf; hence once we cleared the bar at the Gold Coast, we headed SE, checking SOG. We were making ~7kn at 1,200rpm, a sweet spot for the engine/hull/prop combination, and leaving no wake at that speed.
The highest rpms were 1,450 for the last leg (from Seal Rocks South); small wake and more speed.
Once we were ~25nm
offshore and in the EAC, SOG varied between 8.5 and 11.2kn; we headed due South. Course corrections were made to follow the continental shelf, rather than the shape of the coastline.
Sea Biscuits'
engine is new; it had been completely rebuilt before
installation in the engine room in 2003. When I bought her, there were less than 100 hours on her (and 92 on the hour meter on the Sea Wasp). Engine
oil is still completely clean.
We serviced the whole of the raw water/heat exchanger circuit in situ at the marina, and this is where the lack of use showed. The impeller was missing teeth; the
heat exchanger tube were blocked in the bottom 1/3, one
elbow was cracked (my fellow
skipper made a new on from stainless) and the exchanger cap was badly worn and was not holding pressure at all (and half the
coolant was missing as a result).
We found that the large
solar panel array had been going through a
cheap solar controller—and four new (2017, fitted by PO) sealed gel
batteries were cooked and unrecoverable as the result. I do not understand the
concept of saving
money on mission-critical parts! Two new start
batteries (2 x 12V in parallel, because we could not readily source the 6V batteries that were fitted). We have disconnected the array until I can source a new controller. For the trip,
electronics were run off the new batteries and apart from
charging phones and hand-held nav
gear, we only used the batteries to run the nav lights.
A great trip, and a fabulous sea trial: Sea Biscuit is ready for passages.