20kts at 120 deg so we're off!

[MarkJ]

15-20kts just a little south of east will put it at 120 deg behind us so we're off up north a bit

148 miles will be an overnighter. Leave the Southport Bar at midday and cross the Wide Bay Bar midday tomorrow.

A few showers about... but, hey, you can't have everything!


Mark

[Tempest245]

Mark,

Sounds like perfect sailing!....have a blast.......you might be there for breakfast!...

[shadow]

Sounds very cool!!! happy and safe sailing!! Keep us posted.

[TopHat]

Gday Mark & Nic,

Sounds great..looks like more of the same for the next couple of days too!

Ps. Hope you enjoyed your stay in the Camden Haven!, i got into Laurieton on Sunday 18th Jan(from Newcastle) had a look around for you a couple of days later but you must of gone (you might of left that weekend on the same Southerly that i had a good run up the coast on too?)

Where else did you stop on the NSW north coast, any nice places?

Have a good one
cheers
Shaun
"Night Cap" Top Hat 25

[Ex-Calif]

Have a great sail Mark & Nicolle!

[MarkJ]

Oh STUFF it! I screwed up the navigation and had to motor 3/4 of the way.

I didn't take into account 2 very small icons on the flippin chart: Current 2 1/2 knots!!!!!!!

I had to be crossing the Wide Bay Bar (a very dangerous one where surf waves break over the channel) between 12 noon and 1.15pm today, or wait 25 hours till the next.

With a 15 - 25 kt SE'ly I reckoned to make well over 7 knots but counted on 6.0 knots.

So what happened? The wind was a bit lighter and the current was probably near 2 kts in places and dropped me from 7 to 5 kts or 4.5kts so I had to motor sail and push the boat at hull speed. Crazy.

The stupid thing was I left at midday yesterday, if I calculated the current time I could have left a few hours earlier and had a wonderful sail.

Anyway, the bar was fun! Nearly 30 minutes of driving the boat with waves crashing just 100 meters away.

I must, I must, I must calcluate currents better!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by TopHat

Hope you enjoyed your stay in the Camden Haven!, i got into Laurieton on Sunday 18th Jan( Shaun
"Night Cap" Top Hat 25

Hi Shaun,

Did you arrive in time for the markets next the the VMR?
We wanted to stay for them but pushed off to the glitz of the Gold Coast.
Its really good doing a nice quiet place then a joint like the Gold Coast.
We are now going to vegitate here for more 'slow' time

We didnt stop in between Camden Haven and GC. Yamba is meant to be nice, but friends stopped in Iluka the other day and said its just a trawler town.

Mark

[TopHat]

Hi Mark,
I didnt see the markets,
After some Nav screw up's myself (like when you should have your feet up watching the sunset at anchor, but instead doing an unplanned nightsail) , i now count on only 3kts for navigation purposes(in for eg a 15-25kt SE'ly), but know im going to do around 5kts, which allows a bit of time for my inevitable stuffing around!

Have a good one,
cheers
Shaun

[Stillraining]

These bars you speak of Mark...we have river bars at their mouths here on the Pacific Side of the US...are you referring to the same or something different?

[Wotname]

Well Mark, the only time I crossed the Wide Bay bar (in mid 80's), I had the other problem, got there too early (before dawn) rather than planned 0900; had to stooge around for a couple of hours waiting for the light with a fast building South-Eastly which meant the bar was building fast also. Just go in safely although the sounder packed it in right in the shallowest part of the outer bar - was the only time the sounder ever quit - on my first real fair dinkum bar crossing. After the tide turned, the bar was closed and remained closed for 3 or 4 days (as we sat at Tin Can Bay enjoying the 30 knots of SE'ly and then sailed north through the Sandy Straits). No GPS then, just the leads and the shape of the waves to guide us.

Hope you have as much fun on the Qld. coast as we did back then.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Stillraining

These bars you speak of Mark...we have river bars at their mouths here on the Pacific Side of the US...are you referring to the same or something different?

Shallow sand bars which can form at the point where rivers, creeks, lakes or harbours meet the sea are locations for experienced vessel drivers only. Any channel through such bars can change frequently. Even in apparently calm conditions, vessels can be swamped, damaged or wrecked on bars and lives have been lost. Avoid crossing a bar on a run out tide when dangerous waves may occur.

Knowledge & Experience

Do not attempt to cross any bar without experience and local knowledge. You should:

• spend considerable time watching the bar conditions in all combinations of weather and tide
• cross the bar with other experienced skippers before trying it yourself

I love the bits about first watching the bar in all conditions and crossing with an experienced friend you may have picked up floating offshore!


Attached photo below shows the bar area. The 2 legs you see are about 1.5 and 2 miles long.
The prevailing wind is SE with a SE sea and an easterly swell so the whole area of Middle Bank and South Spit have ocean waves breaking accross them.
The first leg takes you through a calm patch with waves from dead astern. None broke for us so no surfing. Depth when we went through at the top of the tide was minimum that I saw 6 meters. There was a 1.5 to 2 meter swell running.

The second leg, for about 2 miles the waves are breaking 100 meters to port on the port quarter. The course takes you along a channel which is 15 meters deep. You are sailing BETWEEN the breakers and the beach!

So plenty of water wherever we were. But the difficulty is when you get scared and deviate from the path! A 15 meter deep channel is fine, but be baulked from a roller breaking 80 meters away and you twist the wheel and all of a sudden you are on the beach!

The second photo (I don't know what setting Nicolle had the camera on: Soft Furry and Fuzzy?) Shows the waves breaking beside us on the first leg.

Do NOT use chart for nav! Ring the coast guard (coast Guard Tin Can Bay 07 54864290) for latest waypoints as they are differnt from these! <--- for benifit of those finding this post

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Wotname

No GPS then, just the leads and the shape of the waves to guide us.

You old guys were nuts.
My track on the GPS was soooooooo exact. There was zero cross track error the whole way. I should present it as a perfect gps landing

Really, I couldn't imagine cruising in the 80's (and before) without a Chartplotter. It would be hair raising - -maybe hair greying!


Mark

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

You old guys were nuts.

I resemble that remark

Originally Posted by MarkJ

My track on the GPS was soooooooo exact. There was zero cross track error the whole way. I should present it as a perfect gps landing

Really, I couldn't imagine cruising in the 80's (and before) without a Chartplotter. It would be hair raising - -maybe hair greying!

Ah, I can see it now - Fast forward 15 years and Mark posts: "All we had was a chartplotter with our GPS postion shown on it"

Newbie sailor posts: "I can't imagine cruising without my live real time satellite 3D vision feed showing me where I am on the wide screen bulkhead. I only use the backup GPS postional data to keep my old Dad happy -he doesn't doesn't trust the live vision and wants to stick his head out of the boat and look around all the time. Hey, even the infrared night feed is now "daylight enchanced with full colour" so that we see everything clearly 24/7 without going topside."

[Boracay]

Ah, the romance of sail. Never knowing where one is, what the weather will be like, when one will arrive...

I wonder how long it took for those new fangled chronometers to have wide acceptance?

The Vikings were lucky to have a bit of loadstone floating in a bowl of water. Those were the days.

[Factor]

Half - or better - of my Wide bay bar crossings havent actually involved the bar, been fortunate to be able to run along the beach and go straight in - saves a lot of time and distance - weather tide etc have to be good to do that however.