Planning advice and thoughts please

[Joe578]

Hi if anyone can offer guidance and knowledge this would be great.

If I am in Eden and intend to day sail up the East Coast what is the next best destination (harbour, port, inlet) to head for?

This could include more than 1 option if there were more. Try and keep it to day sailing please.

Boat speed is on average around 5 - 7 knots in 10-15 knt winds

Any thoughts or prior knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

[JPA Cate]

Welcome aboard, Joe,

Usually, our practice is to wait for W to SE winds, and use them as far as they will take us, against the south current. If you get hold of Allan Lucas' NSW book, he clearly delineates the harbors, and the entrances, along with appropriate strategies for those with a lot of impounded waters.

Since you haven't told us anything yet about your boat, length, draft, it is hard to tell which harbors will not work for you, and I'm finding it difficult to give you meaningful advice. What we, drawing 2.2 m do, is hop on a favourable breeze and ride it as far as reasonably possible, and we do this for the whole east coast. We use stops when we are tired, but mostly press on while the wind is favorable. There are many possible stops, Bermagui, Bateman's Bay, Jervis Bay, Grenwell Point, Jibbon Beach, and so on, but you really need to check them out for yourself. Jim and I also stop in the open roadsteads, so that you don't have to fuss so much with the tides, and barred entrances.

Ann

[Joe578]

Thank you Ann for your input.

Why I have not passed on any information is because what I dont actually have a boat not in real life anyway.

What I am doing is practicing my journey planning with this new sailing simulator that allows you to sail according to the weather and time conditions in the area you are sailing. So basically I am departing and sailing according to information from Windy.com and other mariners notices. For example I departed Queenscliff on Wednesday morning due to conditions forecast which were 4 calm days ahead of 4-5 meter waves on Saturday night (now) so far the simulator is on cue.

So now I find myself in Eden and trying to replicate decisions I would make if this were now and the conditions were as predicted. Hence according to Windy.com I best time to leave is Wednesday.

This is all done in planning for the life long ambition to circumnavigate Australia. Yes it will happen I just have to wait 4-6 more years for when the last child finishes school and I can at least have time to mentally and emotionally prepare to leave family for the trip of a life time.

Looking and researching boats sees me so far on a 34 -36 foot long keeled mono. Draft i would say would be somewhere around 2 meters.

All I am trying to do is have some sort of time frames and working with weather forecasts and windows. I know real sailing would be very different and conditions but the planning I would think is similar.

Anyway thank you for your input and yes I will look into that book you mentioned.