Re-Rig and a Scary Gust

Date: 5th December 2024

Location: Port Stephens, 300 miles south of Brisbane, 100 miles north of Sydney.

This one's for all you sailors and techies though I've put a few nature pics in at the end.

A month ago now we motored 6 or 7 miles up the beautiful Coomera River to Boatworks. According to some reports this is the biggest boatyard in the southern hemisphere. After a night at anchor in the river and a serious bout of food poisoning (listeria?) for me we were lifted out very efficiently and trundled over to our working spot.

Lift out time again.

We were here to be re-rigged. Every ten years our insurers start to say we must replace all the wires (stays) that hold the mast up as well as the associated connectors and plates. In addition we decided to inspect and replace where necessary the big steel plates that bolt the stays to the body of the boat. Without the stays connected the mast would fall over so that has to come off too. And if the mast is off then by definition the boom comes off too. And whilst we were at it we decided to replace the big chunk of wood that separates the anchor locker from our living room (saloon). Why? Because it supports one of these chain plates and we know there is rot in there. Plenty to do.

Boatworks is amazing. It's not cheap at around £75 a night but the facilities are great. You get a little covered workshop area, access to every possible trade you might require, a fantastic free laundry, a chandlery and best of all free courtesy cars to take you to Bunnings to buy everything from timber to tools and bungee cord.

We had already engaged our rigger when back in Scarborough and what a find he turned out to be. Darrin Carter, "The Yacht Rigger" was amazing. He turned up when he said he would, often at 5.30am, he taught us loads, he expected us to do 13 hour days of the more mundane work, he told us of his mates who would do work quickly and at reasonable rates and of course he ate most of our energy bars! We called him the Duracell Bunny because he never stopped.

When you buy a boat the books say you will spend around 10% of its value each year to keep it maintained. Most years we don't because we do everything we can ourselves but this year was a definite exception. With a boat value of around £85k we have probably spent almost £20k to get everything sorted after the termites and now to be re-rigged. Hopefully that's the last time we have expenses like this.

So the crane arrived to remove the boom and then the mast but we had to have all the stays loose before that. Thanks to Darrin we paid the crane direct rather than him putting his own markup on the job, the first of many savings he made for us.

Cables to disconnect at the base of the mast.

Prepping for mast removal.

Off with the boom.

We had already measured the lengths of all the original stays. Several had been made a bit short so were tighter than they should be. All this was taken into account for the new ones. The two front stays which each support a sail that rolls up around it were a particular issue that had required additional pieces to be shipped from the UK in advance (thanks again Mike). By judicial use of lube and heat we were able to successfully dismantle them, replacing a few parts (Sta-Lok fittings) rather than purchase new at an extortionate cost as Selden would prefer.

The old tricky foresail connector.

Cleaning the reusable bits.

Anyway it all came down OK giving us chance to get at those critical chain plates for the first time in Mehalah's 41 year old life. Hidden behind cabinets we had to remove woodwork and lever them free. Then check for cracks. Darrin the rigger pointed us to a crack detection kit which we used to check their integrity. Four of them looked a bit suspicious and we decided to replace them though I now think the 'cracks' we identified were simply scratch marks. Darrin's friendly stainless workshop made new ones though that entailed two trips in the free courtesy car back north of Brisbane to deliver the old ones as templates and then collect the new new ones.

Spraying the crack tester.

Maybe a crack? Let's replace it.

It was at this time too that we now had the opportunity to replace that bulkhead between the saloon and the anchor locker. Suffice to say after a week of work we ended up with a very satisfactory job with a new thicker, rot free bulkhead glassed into place. But it was a messy, frustrating task as we got more and more tired each day.

Old bulkhead removed, ready for the new.

Now then. I just need to seal that hole!

To alleviate the intense work we would visit Kevin and Shawna who were still in the water but working on replacing the rubbing strip along the side of the boat. Kevin is either a perfectionist (says Kevin), or suffers from OCD (says Shawna). A few meals out and a film night in the communal cruisers' lounge took us away from the work for a few precious hours.

Meraki's smart new white rub rail.

As you can see we are juggling with a lot of dependencies here with each day on the hard costing us money and time when we could be sailing towards Sydney for Christmas 

Then the new stays arrived and despite accurate measuring two of them were 40cm too long. More delay. And what a day that was. One of the wettest November days recorded. It rained and rained and rained. But, cold and wet through eventually all the work was completed and next day we were lifted back into the water.

Shiny new rigging.

My, did it rain!

The new tricky foresail connector.

The Duracell Bunny came back for a final in-water check as the hull changes shape in the water and he made a few tiny tweaks before we treated him and Tammy, his wife, to a well earned and famous Boatworks "Big Breakfast". What a star.

The Duracell Bunny.

Then it was back down the river with Kevin and Shawna on Meraki 2 and a return to the crazy world of Surfers' Paradise and Southport before we set off south at last.

Surfers' Parasise Beach.

So from Southport to Port Stephens where we are now has basically been two legs each of around 160 miles. That's more than we can cover in a day so both have involved an overnighter at sea. And for us the first time back in the open ocean for over a year. First up we had to time our departure through Southport Seaway back out into the Pacific. Luckily conditions were good and we left the narrow exit with little problem.

Back out into the Pacific Ocean.

There's a massive south going current down the east coast of Australia called not surprisingly The East Australia Current which greatly enhances our speed by an average of three knots! (Going back north will be much more of a challenge). We were all tired after our efforts at Boatworks and anyway the first night at sea is always the hardest. But the new rig felt great and we sailed beautifully. Small things went wrong though. In particular the bed for the rebuilt autopilot was still not strong enough, we reefed several times during the night and generally we struggled with getting much sleep at all as the downwind course left us rolling about and we hadn't set up the pole to sail wing on wing (goosey goosey Jen). Not helped by the fact that Kevin and Shawna got six hours good sleep each. In the end the autopilot was moving so much we took the sails down at midnight, turned the engine on and hand steered for the rest of the passage  before taking up a mooring ball in the protected bay of Coffs Harbour.

We really liked Coffs Harbour. A relatively small, self sufficient town with a wooden pier where youngsters showed off their diving prowess and couples came for wedding photos (in the same spot at the same time). After many autopilot discussions we decided to bolt its support in more securely rather than glassing it in so that's what we did although this entailed a 6k walk through town to the local Bunnings warehouse for long stainless bolts some of which I unfortunately purchased slightly short. Anyway we did a 'good enough' job to it. At the same time Kevin was trying to sort out his AIS system which broadcasts the boat's position making ailing close to them much easier. Despite donating our old cable he can still only get it working intermittently. Another job for Sydney.

Coffs Harbour has what used to be a small island but is now connected to the mainland by a causeway. It's called Mutton Bird Island and is the home to thousands of Shearwaters in the breeding season. They live in burrows while the young are being nurtured and you see them everywhere as you climb the island on a lovely manmade walkway looking over the vast ocean below.

The pretty town of Coffs Harbour.

After two days at Coffs the weather showed a nice window coming up so we decided to push on as far as we could starting early in the morning. So early in face that with the change in hour between Queensland and New South Wales it was still dark at our planned departure time of 5.30. We called Marine Rescue as we departed to let them know we would head for Newcastle (190 miles) but might well stop at Port Stephens (160 miles) or even Port Macquarie (80 miles) depending on conditions. Port Macquarie came and went with speeds of up to 9 knots (love that EAC). We were sailing beautifully and even got the very heavy pole deployed to let us sail dead downwind). Continuing to Pittwater though looked a stretch so we opted for Port Stephens where we are now.

Kevin, Gill and Shawna on Port Stephens Beach.

We had had a great brisk downwind sail in around 26k of true wind under either main with one reef or main and poled out yankee (front sail). All was good. Night came and the wind, as predicted, started to decrease. We decided to leave the sails as they were for the night and started our watches. M2 still had all four of its sails up, unreefed with the jib poled out. And then, out of nowhere, the wind increased over the course of a minute from 14 knots apparent to 36 knots apparent. By this time we are travelling downwind at nine knots. To calculate the true strength of the wind when travelling downwind you add apparent to boat speed. So we were looking at well over 40 knots of wind for five to ten minutes, only just under control. We managed to furl the yankee and held on for the ride. Meanwhile, looking back, we see M2 lying at an angle of about 70° and in serious trouble. Thankfully a few minutes later we saw her lights and knew they had survived. But it must have been VERY scary for them. Amazingly they had no damage other than a mess of items strewn around the inside the boat.

Mehalah under full sail.

Talking afterwards it seems that they normally reef at night but maybe because they were overtired they hadn't on that one occasion. My log entry at the time reads...

Sudden wind (36k, 33k, 35k). Holy moly!! M2 over at an angle. Hope they are OK... Can see their lights now.

This prompted us to take a second reef in the main and we continued safely. Even so Gill was up several times during my watch to gybe and to discuss an approaching ship. M2's engine was overheating too so we followed then here into the beautiful Port Stephens anchorage at around 9am yesterday.

We all slept for 12 hours last night.

Today we climbed the local hill and generally took things more easily. It's lovely here.Tomorrow it's another early start but with luck we will arrive in Pittwater some 80 miles south late tomorrow and only 25 miles from Sydney. We hope to spend a relaxing few days there in the nature reserve before that final push to Sydney.

You've waited so long. Here's the nature bit. More excitement. At Boatworks we found a Huntsman Spider on deck, then again in the little workshop and finally back at the dock inside our bedroom hatch, finally dropping onto our bed! Twice he was spared. The final time he was squashed and thrown overboard. They are pretty venomous though not generally aggressive. But we heard they are territorial and we really didn't want him in bed with us!

Our Huntsman Spider.

Whilst in Southport we walked along a nature trail adjacent to the bay where the Olympic rowing will be held in 2032. In this short walk we saw a 2m green snake (?), brush turkeys, an ibis (they are everywhere and called bin chickens), lizards and some colourful galahs. And as we approached Coffs Harbour at night we heard squeaks and pings as a group of small unidentified white whales played alongside us for almost an hour. Was that worth the wait? Probably not.

Galah.

That's it for now. Next update should see us in Sydney.