I’ve missed you old girl
I’ve got back from a stint overseas. Luckily Vogelsang was still on her mooring although at the waterline she was looking a little green.
Last week I took two Berliners out on her. As we motored down the harbour, Jan and I had an obligatory nip of OP rum. Jan swung from the rigging while Diana took photos with the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House as a backdrop. Eventually we reached Rose Bay and the sun came out. A mild wind was blowing E-SE so we decided to put up the number one (without the main sail) and took a very leisurely cruise (about 2 knots) back up the harbour.
We started on a broad reach passing under Shark Island. I trimmed the sails and gave the helm to Jan telling him to point towards the bridge before popping below to put on the kettle. After handing out the cuppas I came back on deck, re-trimmed the sails and set Diana (who was now at the helm) on a new course on a tighter reach past Fort Dennison and towards Kirribilli. The wind was starting to swing around to the north east as it tends to do in the arvo.
Diana was good at keeping watch of the traffic. She pointed out the ferry coming across our course and heading to Taronga Zoo. I told her to keep her course. We each had a nice hot cuppa in our hands which is hardly the right moment to put in a gybe. As the ferry got closer Diana seemed a little more concerned so I took the helm, having not yet decided weather we should luff up, bear away or resort to the extreme act of putting down our cuppas and making a gybe. As the ferry got closer I decided we could just bear away and it would go across and in front of us. No dramas. We did get a close look at the ferry.
I adjusted our course again to head back towards Kirribilli. Within a minute a navy police (NP) patrol boat was up beside us. The conversation went something along the lines of:
NP: “That was a bit close mate.”
ME: “Not really. Well it was a bit closer than I would usually like to get but we’ve all got a cuppa in our hands which made it a bit hard to gybe.”
NP: “You don’t think you went a bit too close to that ferry?”.
ME: “Nah, no worries, we didn’t hit it!”.
NP: “Well I think you went a bit close.”
Crikey, we were probably only doing two knots, holding a straight course and we were the only traffic in the area. The ferry master would have had to go out of his or her way to put itself on a course to hit us.
After that friendly chat they powered off. Jan asked me what they were saying and I just told them we were having a chat.
Soon we were in front of the Kirribilli Flying Squadron where we luffed up and dropped the sail and tidied up. I had not had a chance to scrub down the decks before I picked up Jan and Diana and so we all had quite a bit of oxidized gelcoat on our backsides. Diana even decorated her face with a few stripes. Someone from a nearby marina was motoring around in his tender and came up to us and offered that we tie up to one of the vacant moorings while I packed up the sails. But there was no need for us to do so. So I dropped off two white bummed German backpackers at Kirribilli wharf and motored back up harbour.
