Hello everyone,
Life can certainly be interesting sometimes , along with the people that we meet and their stories along the way.

On Thursday night both  Blacks and I were at a friends house when an older couple showed up for an Easter drink .
His name was Dave and his wife’s name was Kelly.
Dave is a Vet and friend of the owner of the property and he looks after the animals on the property.

Over a few drinks the subject of boats came up with us boys and Dave mentioned that he had just recently purchased a 24 ft
Rob  Legg 24
trailer sailer Yacht.
He was quite keen to put her into the water for her maiden voyage, and he invited Blacks and I to come sailing on Saturday at Welshpool with him .

So it was organised for us to go and we decided it was best to meet him at his home and check out the boat and all travel to the boat ramp together.
Dave and Kelly live at Foster , which is nearly an hour drive from home.

So we set off mid morning for Daves place .
During the drive I remembered back to the only time in my life that I have been sailing was when I was fourteen years old on a bit bigger yacht that sailed out from Newhaven , under the bridge and into the Cape Woolami area.

As I’m basically a powerboat man , and I was even back then , the thrill and the freedom and the sensation of harnessing the  free power the wind pushing against the sails , and the quietness of the yacht gliding gently through the water were vivid in my memory and I certainly looked forward to the same treatment today.
The only problem is that there was little or no wind.

On arrival at Daves we decided to start the outbound motor before leaving,
just in case , and sort out some of the messy rigging .
I don’t know a lot about yacht’s but I’m familiar with the basic terminology.

First job was to repair the outboard’s propeller, as it was fairly out of shape,
Blackie took on that task and at one stage he was lying on the ground to finish it off.
Fuel mixed and added , we plonked it on the fence rail and I pulled the rip cord to a terrible sound as the starter rope didn’t engage the flywheel .
I worked out a starting technique with the rope  that allowed engine compression and away she went.

Blackie and Dave roughly sorted out the sail rigging ropes and pulleys, before we then headed to
Port  Welshpool boat ramp.

So all yacht’s have a keel that is like a heavy fin sticking down from the belly of the boat to give balance and stability to the vessel.
There are two types of keel, fixed and retractable.
Fixed keel yachts are mostly kept on moorings or in marina berths .
Daves is the retractable type allowing it to be a trailer sailer class.

So unlike power boats there is a lot more work to do for sailing in the preparation at the boat ramp.
Firsthand we had to untie and stand up the mast and rigging and because it was the first time any of us had set up this boat some steps we had to do twice.
Once the mast was erected then the boom attaches to the mast to hold the main sail set up ,
So basically we attached the main and front sail in the carpark and lowered them into the ready position for on the water.

The launch was good she slid off the trailer quite easily as we tired her off on the wharf.
I noticed a lot of shark carcasses in the water at the wharf and a big resident stingray patrolling the area so I took a short video of that.

Dave got on board ,
and he attempted to lower the keel down into the water and when he released the winch holding it,  it slipped out of his hand freespun and broke off the cable , the keel fell hard down into the water shuddering the whole yacht as it fell .
Oops thats no good.
That means that the heavy keel was stuck in the downward position making it totally impossible to put her back on the trailer on our return.

So we motored off the wharf towards the channel with the engine then suddenly up with the sails , and we are gently sailing , into a slight breeze and we were heading out of Port in the main channel,

In a yacht while heading into the wind you have do what is called to tack ,
Basically to turn the boat on an angle into the wind to catch the wind and work your way slowly forward , before tacking the other way .
The narrower the channel the more tacks are required to move forward.

I went into the cabin to see if I could work out how to fix the retractable keel when we get back.
The whole thing is encased in fibreglass and It had a small inspection cover on top so I couldn’t unscrew it, so i smashed it off with a hammer and a screwdriver.
I had a torch with me to inspect the problem.
I worked out in my head how to temporarily fix it once we got back to shore.

Now I got back on deck and Dave had tacked the boat too far and we could feel the keel come in contact with the shallow bottom .
Now if it jammed hard we were in real trouble as we couldn’t retract it.
Blacks and Dave quickly dropped sail and started the engine to drive us off the bottom into deeper water.

Then Dave handed us both a can of Jack , and we all toasted the launch of
Miss Molly .

Then Dave pointed out Little Snake island, and sis that over the back of it was
Big Snake Island ,
Dave then told of the work he once did over a five year program on Big  Snake Island, as a Veterinarian surgeon,
He would go there for three months at a time and sterilise the islands Koala population.
I said did you cut off their balls?
He replied no he didn’t and that there were other workers on the island to locate the koalas , and climb the tree and scare them out of the tree with a wooden clapper , they would then put the koala in a hessian sack and bring it to his surgery.
Dave would gas them out and then preform a vasectomy for a male or a tubal ligation for a female.
They were then tagged and re released on the Island.
This program has proved to be quite effective in reducing the koala numbers on the island significantly.

So a bit if gentle sailing and its getting late and rain was on the horizon so we head back to the ramp to pack her up.
Once we docked I said to the guys we are  going need about a metre of fencing wire to fix the keel winch .
Five minutes later and Dave has the goods in hand and I got to work on it.
Between the wire and some good taping up by Blackie I got the cable attached again and we gently wound up the keel.

There was a bit of a struggle to reload her on the trailer as it takes a few launches to work out the depth of the trailer.
Once she was loaded and back in the carpark we had to then pack everything up and drop the mast boom and rigging .

Fish and chips for tea and back to Daves for a hard earned beer.

So even with the wind not playing the game , and our speed a slow rate of knots , the feeling was the same as I had all those years ago ,
The feeling and sense of freedom and peace and tranquility that sailing brings you is still the same , its sort of like a pretty special feeling.

So if you ever have the chance to go sailing,
take it ,
Im sure you wont regret it .

ps
I think I need to watch my language next time I film as I have some good footage of the keel holder but I accidentally swore right in the middle of the video so unfortunately I cant post it.

Cheers xxx
Curlyg