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Tales of Cruising with Crew with Tails By Chris Ayres, SY Lady Lonsdale days we searched the marina, the dockside and the boat. No luck. One day, Rhonda was preparing a roast Don't. Ever! Don't take your dog to sea. Not a good and opened the locker to get the baking dish. There was idea. Let me explain… Strudel. Ready for the oven. Fine, hungry and mewing. I suggested we roast her, and was exiled to the back Long ago on Pittwater, a small dog clung fore-paws around the mast, stern paws in the cockpit well. The boy deck for insensitivity. hung out to windward, the dog prayed. Wind gust. Our next dog Ci. Welsh for 'dog'. Dog dog was a cattle- Disaster. Dogs don't make forward hands, or forward dog and a wonderful ci. Ci didn't do sailing. But as a paws if you must. Over we went. Wet dog, kid and north Queensland dog, he loved fishing. Odd bits of bait inverted V.J. My Dad rowed out to the rescue in the to eat, lines to tangle and stinky things in which to roll. dinghy with the Seagull outboard on the stern. Like the So one day when Jeff, a neighbour invited us out in his rest of the family, the Seagull was on holiday too. Dad half cabin, fishing in the Ross Creek, Ci joined us. picked up Sos (short for sosban as in Sosban fach yn Absolutely Silliest Idea Ever. It rained and stormed and berwi ar y tân - 'national' anthem of Llanelli where my winds blew storm force, but things were about to get far Mum was born) who was dogfully swimming for shore. far worse. Jeff caught this giant mud crab on a line. It Dad left me to sort out the V.J. escaped. In the cockpit. Jeff tried to subdue it with a fishing knife the size of a cavalry sabre. He dropped it. Quarter of a century later, my partner and I had accumulated a house, a cat, Strudel and a dog Blackie. Chris's Dad with SOS The crab now grabbed the Claymore in its right claw and with murder in its stalky little eyes went on the rampage. He was a kelpie cross with labrador - the latter made Dog howled, kids screamed and blokes did what blokes him a water dog, the former a canine Houdini. We also do best. PANIC! Ci led the retreat onto cabin top, just acquired our first 'cruising' boat, a Viking Trailer sailer - bilge keel, 17 foot (OK, pedants, 5.6 metres), four berths, heads and galley. No, you cant do this in 5.6 metres. Not even in 17 feet, mind. Neither can you sail to windward with bilge keels such as Aderyn Goch (Red bird - Welsh - red topsides, see) had. But we fitted, just; Rhonda, Blackie and I. of owners and their dogs if the latter were taken ashore. Do you know just how big the Kuringai Chase National Park is? It's bloody huge. By dusk, we had crawled, limped and scrambled over every inch/millimetre if of its million hectares and still no black dog. Back to boat. Darkness loomed. We had to get home. Work next morning. I had just slipped several vertebrae hauling the followed by Steve, the two girls and their heroic now fervently religious father who was desperately seeking help from the Almighty. Boat wobbled precariously with those in peril on the sea clinging to the roof. The cutlass cavorting crab had control of the cockpit. Doomed we were. But as luck would have it, in attempting to board the cabin-top, still grasping its scimitar, it slipped and fell anchor up when I saw a small black shape appear on the overboard. Praise the God of Small and Clumsy So one lovely sunny Saturday, we were out with a couple of former friends and Blackie. Silly Idea. We had sailed all the way from Don's Boatshed at Brooklyn to Dead Horse Bay. OK, I know a distance of less than a mile but near five for us. I did say Aderyn Goch sailed sideways, didn't I? I had been ashore in my new $50.00 rubber dinghy for supplies. Blackie, like many a dodgy beach, barking. Dropped anchor, fell into dinghy (wobbly glassfibre model, this time) paddled ashore, retrieved offending dog, tempted to drown same, raised the anchor, again, slipping the remaining disks and returned home. Monday. Work. Bus left at 7.01 a.m. Made it. Just. Oh to relax at work! Bliss. Crustaceans! We were saved! We now have Ben, a Cairn Terrier. And Lady Lonsdale, our 40+ year old Moody Halberdier Ketch. Ben doesn't do boats. Seasick both times. Now, he stays home, we cruise. yacht broker, saw me coming. With love in his eyes, he leapt into my arms. Dinghy, owner and dog landed in By now, dear reader, one would have thought I had learnt my lesson. Dogs and boats don't mix. But no. No more pets aboard. Rhonda says it's Ben or her. Mind, Ben doesn't tell me what to do and is very drink. Of course, everyone helps wet dog on board Hence my next Really Stupid Idea was to take dog and good company … leaving poor bloody skipper drowning, thoughts of dogmurder running through my mind. As luck would have it, dog does what wet dogs do. Explodes in the one square metre cockpit, shaking himself dry. So now four wet people, one still drowning, wet dog and rubber drogue. Dead Dog Bay? cat on Christmas holidays with us to Botany Bay. On iron boat. Only took 3 days. Day 1 - cat vanished. Day 2 dog sea-sick in cockpit. Day 3 arrived at our destination. Cat turned up, attached to dinghy. This, I discovered only after I threw dinghy and cat overboard. Back home, vowing never ever again. By now I was TCP NOTE: In TCP #38 we published two stories on pets onboard - two very different views. We had many letters on the subject after that and published some in expecting a Summons from RSPCA, Animal Rightist's TCP #39. Lets see what happens this time! Blackie's other vice was wanderlust. No fence could stop him. I built a replica Berlin Wall, but still Blackie and of course, the government. escaped. To solve the problem, we moved - as you do - to Scotland Island. That fixed him! He had a whole island to himself (and a thousand other canines). By now we had acquired two daughters, somehow. Our next boat was Seren (Star) a wonderful mark 1 Baker built Top Hat that really did sail! No dogs and no cats allowed. Getting smart I was. Neighbour fed dog and The next boat was a world cruising sloop of 36foot /11 metres - an iron boat - Fulmar - acronym for Flaming Useless Lamentable Monstrous And Rusting. Bargain at $7k, according to the broker (who had indeed seen me coming). Go anywhere in it, he added. We tried, too, cat. Dog could not escape Scotland Island. Dog had moved out to our neighbours after our second offspring was born, so a great arrangement. Mind, he came home for feeds and attention. Just like the Gen. Y'ers still do. but it had weather helm to challenge a gorilla. And slow as a Bondi tram - ok bus! Eventually, we left Sydney and sailed (the Iron Boat had gone to a far far ferro place) in the boat before our present boat. Going north. And kept going. North Star We often attempted to sail in Pittwater, enjoying the quaint antics of the racing fraternity. After a days hard slog, we sometimes made it as far Cowan Creek and then sought to relax/recover at anchor. Jerusalem Bay was a favourite. Until, one morning, I took Blackie ashore. Very Silly Idea. Yes there were laws even then promising financial ruin, public castigation and flogging (by now I discovered that the phonetic of spelling Welsh names of boats over the radio was flattening my batteries) was a motor sailer and our home. No dog this time (he had made a final escape to nirvana), but cat was later flown up to join us in Townsville. The girls were delighted to have Strudel (the cat, not desert) on board, but Strudel had other ideas. She vanished. 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Sweetlip Reef was huge; we entered it's about 8 days so we took advantage of vast lagoon and shallower waters with a the smooth seas and scooted back to the sigh of relief (from me anyway). mainland. We were about an hour east of However, the windward edge of the reef the Keppels when a vigorous looked miles away, there was nothing to southeaster was upon us. Spray jackets get 'behind'. If the wind got stronger we passed up, wet salty face, sails reefed could be in an exposed position with a long fetch in front of us. Lucky the and a very fast sail into Leekes Beach. forecast was good; we dropped the pick Aahhhh, The Keppels. Always a good and had a look around. Blue everywhere, reefs starting to expose, sun spot to call home for a while. going down, glassy, peaceful. The Swains are a reef system in Story & photos by Jesse (left) , Ben and a Queenfish way down to Hixon Cay, our intended The next morning when the sun was high enough we carried on to Sandshoe Reef. It was very pretty so Greg went up the mast to take a photo… that was the last shot that camera took. Let's just say, in your mouth is not a good place to hold even a small camera, especially when you want to talk at the same time! Even though it looked so good we couldn't get the anchor to hold so we moved on. Queensland stretching almost from Gladstone to the Whitsundays. Their southern end is situated east of Yeppoon. Gladstone Harbour, south of Yeppoon, is a good place to leave from because you get a better wind angle. It's hard to realise just how big an area they cover, probably because they're mostly covered by water. Looking at the chart I see that we didn't even scratch the surface. But, there's always another trip in the offing... Leonie Bremer-Kamp, ex SY Bifrost The Swain's are huge. Like a whole other country. They make your 'home port' seem like a tiny speck on the map. Like it is… they put things in perspective. We left Gladstone with light winds from the east and had an easy overnight sail toward the southern end of the Swains. By noon the next day we were pretty close. Very calm seas due to the massive reef system in front of us (somewhere) blocking the ocean swell. Being high tide there was nothing to see except hints of things under the surface. A view from the mast showed more clearly what was about. From there, with help from the C-Map we threaded our destination. Unfortunately it had been washed away in some strong weather and we could see bits of it strewn around the area. (what's the word for something smaller than a cay?) The water around looked turbulent & not what I'd call home. So on we went, further north toward Sweetlip Reef. By this time I was wearing down, anxious to find a place to anchor for the night. If it took much longer to find a good spot the visibility would disappear with the setting sun. I wasn't too keen to be sorting a new reef anchorage at night. The distances between reefs are not that big but not all reefs have anchorages. Horseshoe Reef is where we chose and after this bit of exploring found that the C-Map really is quite accurate in this area. Showing reefs larger than they are, shapes and positions pretty good. Fishing was great with Ben and Jesse pulling in Trevally, Coral Trout, Red Throated Sweetlip and Shark Mackerel. After a couple of days though, Remoras ruled. We sat out 30kts. there in Horseshoe Reef and it was very comfortable, parked as we were, close behind a big coral bombie. After the blow it lightened off again. We had been out there Leonie & Greg Ben & Jessie picked their parents very well! 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Page 1 and 2: Sept. - Oct. 2011 E-TCP E-TCP Racin
Page 3 and 4: www.fusioncats.com jim@fusioncats.c
Page 5 and 6: RACING ON RUBY On one of the days a
Page 7 and 8: TCP is printed on very modern press
Page 9 and 10: PLAIN SAILING WELCOME TO yOur ONE-S
Page 11 and 12: “The guys did an awesome job to b
Page 13 and 14: Finish Line - Official Boarding Par
Page 15 and 16: GOOD NEWS FROM TCP ADVERTISERS What
Page 17 and 18: NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST LOVE ME
Page 19 and 20: www.greatcircleliferafts.com.au Gre
Page 21 and 22: www.stitchitawl.com For additional
Page 23 and 24: In late 2008 while I was living at
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Page 27 and 28: INSURANCE WOES IN THE WHITSUNDAY'S
Page 29 and 30: Hi Dave, maritime case law be subor
Page 31 and 32: SEAGULL MANIA photo: Chris Ayres's
Page 33 and 34: Andy & Jenny photo Australia is for
Page 35 and 36: Lynelle & Lloyd, onboard Chappie sh
Page 37 and 38: Yacht Haven Anchorage Ratanachai Wo
Page 39 and 40: NOW IS THE TIME 0401 235 534 Adam W
Page 41 and 42: Seasick?? Who?? Left: Anaconda made
Page 43: What’s up doc? and lap your oar i
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Page 49 and 50: The sheets were put aside while we
Page 51 and 52: 37' Wilf O'Kell Gaff Cutter Reduced
Page 53 and 54: The BareBones Project-The Editor Bu
Page 55 and 56: AUCTION NOTICE Sailing & Motor Yach
Page 57 and 58: Sail on Vicky It is with deep sadne

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