Cats don't sail to windward in heavy weather

And when we got back from our camping trip, there was this great email from Rick -

'Just raced to Cygnet regatta from Kettering in 25 to 40 knots all head wind.

'Started last - broke shackle on main sheet, broke rope replacing shackle. All head wind sailing apart for last mile which was a reach. Fifth over (finish) line from 70 or so starters!!!!! Got beaten by a Sydney 38 and some champion etchel racer. How's that for a cruising clunker? Best part was doing 9-10 knots hard on the wind and no wet weather gear. I LOVE MY BOAT. Then they gave me first prize on handicap.

'One amazing thing I did see was on the last short reach. It lasted about 5 minutes and I was humming along at 14.3 knots when a small tri called Rocket Alice went passed me like I was standing still! I think they got wet cause all I could see was spray.They pipped me from fourth place but we had a nice roast cooking.

'Why would anyone want a momo? One of the hot shot racers from town (who got in half an hour after me) asked me the same question. It really p*sses them off when we pass eight blokes on the weather gunnel and we are passing around the coffee plunger. One thing that I found amazing was when punching into a wave train our cat doesn't jolt to a halt. It just punches through sending a shit load of spray over the top. No pounding under bridge deck though the hull did shiver in the severe pounding. She's well balanced and never lifted a hull once. It is a cruising boat after all.

'You did a great job Murray.

'Cheers Rick

'P.S. Next time I will dump the 400 kgs water and beat the racers.'

Well, what can I do but blush?

A Weekend Away

The weekend just gone, Moira and I left the dog in the care of our youngest and went bush in Tasmania's Tarkine.

The area, in the state's north-west corner, is the largest remaining temperate rainforest area in Australia with a wealth of natural and human heritage including over 1,000 aboriginal archaeological sites and remains of European logging and mining. Today it is one of Tasmania's troubled "multi-use" areas attempting to balance preservation of its special ecology, history and pre-history, tourism and (hopefully sustainable) exploitation of its resources.

Our plan was to overnight at Corinna, an 1890s wild-west mining ghost town recently brought back to life as an eco-tourism base, before taking doing the Pieman and Savage Rivers walk then driving north through Arthur River thence looping the state by driving home along the northern coast. We did do the walk outward (moderate but entirely do-able even by an older f**t with knees well past their use-by date) but grabbed a freebie kayak in the Savage and paddled back to the car.

A bit of Corinna history we hadn't expected was the little graving dock (see the picture) built for the huon pine cruise boat "Arcadia II" in the 1980s. Most people know graving docks as 'drydocks' but when I was learning my trade with the Australian Department of Defence about Garden and Cockatoo Islands, both with somewhat bigger graving docks, they were 'graving docks'.

Actually, graving docks are named over the practice of 'graving' a ship's bottom - burning off the weed growth then paying it with tar to inhibit new growth, ship worm and rot. Graving docks usually have walls of concrete (Garden Island) or stone (Cockatoo Island) but you can see that the "Arcadia's" was just eathern embankments with concrete where a steel gate was lowered in by the crane at the far end in the photo. Arms proped from the sides of the dock would brace the boat upright while it sat on keel blocks when the gate was in place and the dock pumped dry.

I'm not quite old enough to have actually graved a vessel, nor to have seen it done, but it sounds like the sort of sailorizing that is nicer to dream of than actually do . . .

Tasmania's Salmonid Industry part of horrific murder mystery?

Many of my Tassie readers will have visited the Salmon Ponds in Plenty. Few, though, will know that the first attempt to introduce trout and salmon to Tasmania, as well as the rejuvenation of the native oyster industry, involved a suspect in a notorious child murder of 1860 that created the form of the classic murder mystery.

On the night of 28 June 1860, three-year-old Saville Keen had his throat slashed almost through his vertebrae and his body dumped in the family's long-drop privy. Two police investigations followed with the second charging Saville's 16 year-old half-sister of the murder although the detective in charge suspected his 14 year-old half-brother was also involved. Constance, the sister, was found not guilty but voluntarily confessed five years later and served 21 years imprisonment. William, the brother, studied biology under Thomas Huxley - 'Darwin's bulldog' - eventually specialising in corals.

William adopted his middle name, also Saville, as part of his surname and, in 1884, William Saville-Kent took up an appointment as 'Superintendent and Inspector of Fisheries' in Tasmania. Constance, calling herself Emilie Ka followed William to Hobart in 1886. William was to revive the over-exploited native oyster fishery and introduce salmon to Tasmanian waters but was more interested in his own experiments and his contract was terminated in 1887. William, his wife and Constance moved to Brisbane, living in the same house, where William became a famous authority on the Great Barrier Reef. He later worked in Western Australia then Thursday Island and developed the techniques of opening pearl oysters without killing them and of artificial pearl cultivation.

Constance moved to Melbourne in 1890 and trained as a nurse. She later lived and worked in Perth, Sydney and Maitland before retiring to a series of Sydney rest homes. She died two months after her 100th birthday in 1944.

Kate Summerscale's 2008 book 'The Suspicions of Mr Whicher' parses the investigations of Detective Whicher into little Saville Ward's murder and the machinations within the Kent family home in fascinating detail. Discovering the connection with Tasmanian and Australian aquaculture was an extra thrill, especially as 2009 is the year of Darwin.

You can check the book out here .

Another one we cooked after the catalog

'Zeus' is a twin-screwed aluminium 22 metre by 7.2 metre feed delivery vessel for the Tasmanian Salmon company, Huon Aquaculture Group.

The 'box' behind the wheelhouse is an 180 cubic metre hopper, capable of holding over 100 tonnes of feed in six cells. Quite a jump from the 13-tonnes capacity of the Zeus' predecessor (also designed by me).

A conveyor system automatically delivers the feed under the hoppers and wheelhouse then through the 'snout' to floating feeders (designed by guess who) of 6-tonnes capacity in each fish pen.

Huon Aquaculture built this small ship in house. I guess they and I should take it as a complement that another shipyard has posted it on the Net as their own creation.

Give Huon Aquaculture a look - http://www.huonaqua.com.au/

One that isn't in the catalog

Last Fandango was launched by Rick Lutjens of Kettering, Tasmania before Christmas (well, actually, before the Tassie Rock Lobster season to fit in with the crane operator!) and is presently on her maiden cruise.

She is a tad over 12.2 metres long (Rick pulled the stern scoop out a bit - what does the designer know? ;^) ) by 7 metres wide. Construction was strip-plank in Western Red Cedar with continuous 'glass faces on both sides and the layout is damn comfortable - three big double berths, an airy bridgedeck soloon, galley for real cooking, comfy cockpit and even a bath.

I heard from Rick after the first sailing weekend. Apart from a few teething issues with hose clamps and the likes, the boat did everything it should and did it so well they ended up going about twice as far as they had originally intended - down to Recherche Bay in Tasmania's deep south.

Nice one, Rick & Doreen!

So, how can you look at the old, old dead site?

No sooner do I write that I've killed off my IslesDesign page than I start getting emails from people wanting to know how to see the catalog of PDF data sheets it hosted. Well, you can look it (and just about any other defunct web page) up at the Internet Archive's WayBackMachine. And it is even FREE!

Just go to http://www.archive.org/index.php, enter 'Islesdesign.com' in the WayBackMachine search engine. It will give you a choice of vintages - pick something young and fruity, say Dec 2007, and you'll be well on your way. If you have any problems, shoot me an email.

Coming to a monitor near you in 2009

Late in 2007 I stopped my web site "islesdesign.com" and actively selling stock plans of recreational boats because I was getting simply too much demand for my commercial designs and conversions to be able to do credit to them all. Since then, however, I have been missing a venue to vent my observations and opinions (those of you who know me know I have opinions about everything!) as well as somewhere to boast what I've been up to. The itch comes and goes but it never seems long before it's back and I've now decided: my Christmas project for '08 is to begin this blog.

Over the next few weeks I'll search back through my files and emails and give a bit of a summary of what has happened over the last eighteen months - launchings, new buildings, conversions and flights of fancy. Interspersed are bound to be mumblings in my beard.

And after that? Well, it will be something of a ride for us all; and, I'm sure the financial crisis/correction is going to keep it almost too much fun.

Cheers,

Muzza