And no bloody women. There is a god!
18th November, 2007
There have been a few outings on Vogelsang recently. I may have missed writing up on one of them but not to worry because Sunday 18th November was one of the most relaxed sails I’ve ever had.
A fortnight ago Andrew (my mate) and I went for a sail on Akvavit, Andrew’s S80. This Sunday it was Vogelsang’s turn for an outing. I set up the sails (main and No. 2) and picked up Andrew from Greenwich wharf around 12:30pm or a bit later. It was a moderate wind blowing between 5 and 10 knots. It was perfect for a leisurely cruise.
We worked our way down the harbour sailing behind Goat Island (the Balmain side) so Andrew could point out the place of his collision (Akvavit), as mentioned in the last post. A very dramatic recount of the events was given.
As we sailed into Lavender Bay, we got a nice bit of lift off one of the floating “brick†restaurants that pollute the harbour these days. It would appear that being able to manoeuvre and safely navigate a vessel while under-way is no longer a requirement for registering and licensing commercial vessels on the harbour these days. Andrew was quite keen for us to tack as we came up along-side the floating brick. I told him we would keep our course until absolutely necessary and would tack when we needed to. We were going to slide above the glass brick with a few meters of safe room to spare. What I did not count on was the skipper throwing the thing on full throttle. A huge plume of smoke and dirty water came gushing out of the aft port side. We were in a laughing fit as we exchanged pleasantries with the skipper and crew of the brick.
The highlight of the day was the 18 ft skiff race. I think we actually sailed through the start line off Clarke Island as we sailed down the harbour. The race, though, was well under-way. We yelled out “Vogelsang†and our sail number to the time keeper but they didn’t seem interested in recording our late start.
We continued on our tack over to Point Piper. By this stage both Andrew and I had a can of VB in our hands. As we approached the point we came up along-side another yacht – a North Shore (33?). There were three blokes aboard and one of them yelled out “And no bloody women. There is a god!†to which we saluted with our beers before putting in a tack.
We were now on a starboard tack heading north over to Georges Head/Chowder Bay.
“And no bloody women!”
The next thing we knew the 18 ft skiff fleet were running down from Neilson Park past us with their spinnakers flying and their bows skipping over the swell. We could see their centreboards floating out of the water as they came over each swell. Before too long they had rounded the bottom mark near Bradleys Head and were on the beat and sailing right past us.
I was proud when I observed that Vogelsang was maintaining the same heading into the wind as the skiffs. Andrew later claimed that we were keeping up with “Smeg†but I think beer affects him in a different way. We tacked at Chowder Bay and headed over to Shark Bay (Nelson Park baths) so we could keep amongst the fleet. It was a fantastic sight to be amongst the 18 foot skiffs flying past.
Once we reached Obelisk Bay we decide we had better head home. Dinner was to be at Andrew and Monique’s tonight and we were expected at 7pm as other guests were arriving. I went below and hauled out the spinnaker pole. It was the first time I have used it. Interestingly, the ring for the spinnaker pole is not attached to a fixed point on the mast, but runs up and down a track. It took a bit of sorting out, but we got the jib winged out. Wow, what a difference to boat speed it makes to have the No. 2 poled out. As I usually sail solo it is not something I have been able to do up until now.
It was 6:30pm when I dropped Andrew off at Greenwich Wharf. By the time I got back to the mooring, packed up, then drove from Woodford Bay to Greenwich, Andrew had the sausages on the BBQ and a few more beers under his belt. In fact, I think those sausages had been on the BBQ for quite some time!
Maintenance check – one of the wire strands on the forward port lower shroud broke today. Time to get the mast down and replace the standing rig.
The photos in this post were taken by Andrew Richardson. See more sailing and nautical photography at www.photonautical.com
