410: Sunshines Updates

[ozsailer]

Hello all,
well its been 7 months since we purchased Sunshine and we have slowly chipping away at turning the old charter boat into our own personal boat. Its been a tad difficult arranging tradesman to do the work on Hamilton Island with us still having to fly in and out often to take care of business at home.
Some of the major work we have done to date has been to raise the bimini six inches (150mm) to give us standing headroom under the bimini. Widen the bimini just under 3ft (800mm) either side and to have a clear plastic windscreen installed between the bimini and saloon roof. We also had side covers made to give us more shelter from the sun which are also shower proof. We will put water proof covers on at a later date but as we are in tropical waters we were more concerned with protection from the sun. A new boom bag was also installed and we have gone from the light blue to a clean grey look. The cockpit cushions have all been replaced with a more durable rubber and covered in a two tone grey. All the material is Sunbrella which we have found by far the most durable material here in Australia. We had new hatch covers made which will protect the interior from the direct sunlight up here.
There has been a myriad of other work we have been doing including servicing the motors and sail drives, antifouling and polishing the boat, replacing the rudder bearings etc
We had a very large amount of gear from our old boat to move up here. Some 2400 kilometres north of home. We discussed several options including driving the car up with a trailer but this would take three days, accommodation, meals and fuel. We also had to consider the sea dog who would be coming with us on the trip as it was to be our final trip as we would be cruising the area after this.
We were fortunate in finding a removalist company that wanted a backload to return to their base and we got a very good deal to send all out gear north. This including new solar panels and all the associated gear to wire it up. All our spare parts such as all the stainless nuts, bolts, screws, shackles etc collected over many years. Lots of tools that we found indispensable over time, our dingy and motor etc. There was so much it is not possible to list it all. We arranged a managed storage facility not five minutes from where we hauled the boat for antifoul making it very easy to transfer all the gear.
We are currently anchored in Woodwark Bay in the Whitsundays which has to be one of the most underrated anchorages up here. The boat is proving to be far more than we expected and we have been enjoying every day of ownership to date. Our top speed to date has been 10.7 knots in a 20 to 25 knot Sou Easter. We are averaging 8 knots and we seem to do half wind speed up to 18 knots comfortably. We are still in the learning curve and having way to much fun. Having some difficulty attaching photos at the moment but will do so as soon as I figure it out.



Greg, Sue and Sea Dog
SV Sunshine
Whitsunday Islands Australia.

[Ex-Calif]

Outstanding post - Keep 'em coming!

Where do your initial cruising plans take you?

[ozsailer]

Hi Dan,
At the moment we have no agenda or time table other than one function being Shag Island get together which is a charity get together for cruisers for Prostate cancer at the end of August. Then we are off to Townsville, Cairns then return to our home port of Lake Macquarie in New South Wales at the end of the year.
For the time being we are just enjoying discovering the unwritten or less frequented anchorages of the Whitsundays.


Greg, Sue and Sea Dog

[Ex-Calif]

Whitsunday charter is on my wish list.

I had friends that did a honeymoon charter there. Sounded magical!