Tainui Internet Log
April 2000
Recorded by Brian Fairweather
This is the start of the Internet log for the Australian Registered ship "Tainui" – a 46-foot Petersen sloop with a cutter rig. She is owned by Brian Fairweather and Daniel Knowles, two guys who decided to give up lucrative positions in the computer software and restaurant industries to sail the oceans in pursuit of adventure – or at least a good tan. We bought the boat in Sydney Australia on March 29, 2000 and plan to sail from Australia to New Zealand and the South Pacific. Dan holds a Yachtmaster certificate in the UK and both of us have spent a great deal of time on sailing yachts since we were kids.
April 1 – Tainui is on a mooring at Cammeray Marina, north of Sydney and beyond the Spit Bridge (drawbridge) in Middle Harbour. Brian spent the day cleaning the decks and filling the water tanks. Not much excitement, but it’s pretty cool to be working on your own boat!
April 2 – Our first guests arrived on board, Brian’s friends Adam Richards and Vanessa Lenthal met Brian at Cammeray Marina and we motored under the Spit Bridge. We decided to test my docking abilities and picked up 150L of diesel at Clontarf Marina. No major dramas, but it was interesting to see how Tainui handled in the tight spaces! When you’re trying to turn a 46-foot boat in 60 feet of space, you have to know how to use the prop wash and prop walk! It started to rain a bit, and the wind was fairly light, but we headed out under power to pick up Brian’s girlfriend Kathleen Hunter at Balmoral Beach, Mosman. The outboard motor gave some trouble and it was pouring rain by the time Kath was on board, but at least we made it. A slow sail out the Heads of Sydney Harbour and then back towards Cammeray…
April 3-4 – Mostly rainy days, Brian spent most evenings abourd Tainui, cleaning up and discovering all the gear left onboard by the previous owner…
April 5 – Finally, Dan arrives in Sydney to see his old friend and his new yacht! Brian had to travel to Brisbane that morning for work, so we spent a couple hours in the Qantas lounge having breakfast and catching up. Dan spent the day on Tainui, mostly sleeping off his jet lag…
April 6 – Brian’s last day in the office! Dan came into the city for drinks and we were joined by Kath a bit later – decided to have dinner at the Oaks and an early night, as we are planning our ‘test voyage’ for tomorrow morning.
April 7 – Dan and Brian arrive at Cammeray Marina and meet Phil and Tiff Avery, friends of Brian and Kath in Sydney who are originally from the UK, and who own a J24 named ‘Margarita.’ Jim and Alexis Tatem, friends of Brian visiting from Seattle, also arrive and we all head out on Tainui, with the exception of Tiff, who will drive to meet us at the Pittwater, our first stop on our trip to Port Stephens. By 11am, we are motoring through the Heads and put the sails up for our first coastal cruise. Tainui turns out to be not only comfortable, but fast! Unfortunately, we create one of our first entries on our ‘things to fix’ list by trying to force the knotmeter log a bit too hard into the through-hull fitting. Now we have no knotmeter…We sail north on a starboard tack straight up to the Pittwater and arrive at Barrenjoey Heads by 3:30pm. (The Pittwater is one of my favourite parts of the Sydney area – I’ve spent a lot of time hiking, biking and driving around the Northern beaches and Kuring-gai Chase National Park, especially West Head, which provides spectacular views of the entrance, lighthouse and the Pittwater area itself.) After meeting up with Tiff at Clareville Beach and relaxing for a short while, our guests head off, leaving Dan and I to find a place to tie the boat up for the night. We motor down to meet Shane Crookshanks, a friend of Brian who runs the Pittwater VICSAIL boat brokerage. Shane offered us a berth next to a huge steel yacht once owned by the former PM of Australia, Bob Hawke. Grateful for the berth, we took Shane for a drink at the Newport Arms next door and had a quick dinner as well. Another early night, as we are heading out bright and early in the morning…
April 8 – 5:30am we are up and moving, motoring out of the marina by 5:50am. We really want to make it to Port Stephens while it is still daytime, as we’ve never been there and are expecting it will take about 12 hours. The sunlight early in the Pittwater morning is spectacular, making the red rocks of Kuring-gai Chase glow. By 6:30am we are through the heads and in the ocean once more. Sydney’s office towers are still visible on the horizon – it feels really good to be here rather than at work! Not much traffic, except for the container ship ARIAKE, which we make sure to avoid as it heads north past Newcastle and Port Stephens. By 4:00pm we can see the entrance to Port Stephens and are somewhat optimistic about getting in before dark – still a long way to go, though. At 7pm we made our way into the entrance and started searching for lights to indicate the channels – Port Stephens is a bit of a maze for newcomers and we are glad to see the Nelson Bay Marina ahead, where we have decided to pull in, as we are meeting Kath and her family for dinner there.
We tied up at the end of a long pier at the marina, to find that the pier way locked at the far end – thankfully, some fellow sailors on a 43-foot Adams sloop gave us their keys and the run of the place! Simon and Sandy keep XYRIS at Nelson Bay marina and we invite them aboard Tainui and then have a look at XYRIS. After a few beers, Dan and Brian head off to dinner.
April 9 – Brian went ashore to have the world’s worst golf game, while Dan stayed aboard Tainui and read operations manuals. We did end up paying for the marina berth for the previous night ($55!) before deciding to take one of the free moorings located about 200m outside the marina.
April 10 – After a bit of cleaning and mucking about, we took on diesel at Nelson Bay Marina and headed out for our overnight trip all the way back to Sydney Harbour. We noticed on the way that the autopilot compass seemed to be misaligned with the cockpit compass and made a mental note to have them ‘swung.’ As night falls, the phosphorescence became apparent in the water – if you’re not a sailor, you are probably not aware that the ocean glows at night! This is due to the tiny plankton that float near the surface and emit light – they’re always there, but only obvious in the dark. By 9:30pm, the dolphins have come out to play – while I can’t see them well, I can hear them breathing and occasionally catch a glimpse of one or two as they streak by the boat. Every once in a while, one will jump in the moonlight – a bit surreal when you are on watch alone!
April 11 – Dan came on watch at about 1am, while Brian takes a rest – a smooth ride down the coast in variable winds, and by noon, we are tacking through the heads at Port Jackson, having made the 100+ mile journey in about 20 hours. This seems pretty good, so we treat ourselves to lunch at Watson’s Bay. After relaxing a bit, we cruise back to the Spit Bridge, thinking there is a 4:30opening – however, since it’s a weekday, the next one is at 7:30pm! After a few hours anchored across from Chinaman’s Beach, we motor back to our mooring and call it a day.
April 12 – Now that the test voyage was successful, it’s time to get serious! We decide to inventory everything in the boat and start with the sails. Tainui has nine, including those on the rig already. We pull the remaining seven out and bring them to Tunks’ Park to lay them out and inspect them. Surprisingly, they look very good and we decide to fold them all carefully so that we can fit them back into the hold. The rest of the day was spent discovering new storage areas and lots of spares, tools, etc. aboard Tainui.
April 13 – Brian cleaned out all the forward lockers and got rid of some rusty chain and old rope for the spare anchor. Managed to fit all seven sails into the forward cabin lockers, so we don’t have sailbags falling about the cabin anymore. Dan prepares the anchor chain for painting of length markings. Not a thrilling day, but productive.
April 14 – We meet the first of our ‘old salt’ sailors – Captain Mike Downes is about 72 years old and has been working on the water most of his life. He is here to ‘swing’ our compass, which is a bit of common sense, plus a bit of magic! We head out into Middle Harbour, where Captain Mike has us turn the boat slowly through 360 degrees, while he checks the compass bearing to a known landmark. The point is to see whther the compass has any deviation at different points of the compass, which are caused by various large bits of metal on the boat, such as the winches. It turns out that the cockpit compass has hardly any deviation and with the insertion of a couple of tiny magnets, it is brought to within 1 degree of accuracy over every bearing. That was quick! Now for the autopilot compass – this turns out to be a lot harder and requires a few hours to get it right – at $120 per hour! Oh well, now it’s done, we are yet another $367 poorer, but we can trust that our compass readings and autopilot will be correct. It turns out that Captain Mike was a sailor in WW2 aboard a Q boat, swims daily at Balmoral Beach and regularly competes in freestyle events, preferring the 1500 metres! When Brian is taking him back to the marina, the outboard engine stops working, and Captain Mike insists on doing the rowing all the way back to shore… Dan and Brian want to be like Captain Mike someday…
April 15 – More cleaning… figured out why the outboard engine kept cutting out! For $35, the guys at the marina put in a new spark plug and a bit of petrol, then opened the air intake valve really far and started it up just fine! Seems that the air intake valve needs to be really wide open to get enough air into the tiny little tank – otherwise, a vacuum is created and the fuel doesn’t get to the engine. Duh – oh, well – at least we got a new spark plug…
April 16 – Decided to have a fun day, meeting Kara Lee Richards and Catherine and Mark Garbin at the Marina for a day sail. (Catherine and Mark are busy starting a fashion label, as Catherine is a talented designer/artist and Mark is pretty good with the financial numbers – a good team!) We caught the 1pm Spit Bridge opening, then motored out to an anchorage across from Chinaman’s Beach for lunch – while there, Tiff and Phil sailed by in ‘Margarita’ and we caught their attention by racing over in the dinghy. They pulled up alongside, but there were too many waves to raft up, so we said our goodbyes, as they leave for England tomorrow. (Hope to see you guys again soon back in Oz!) After a sail through the Heads and down under the Harbour Bridge, we headed home in what quickly became pouring rain. Made it to the bridge just in time – but a traffic accident on the bridge itself held us up for a while. Finally back to Cammeray and said goodbyes again – by the time Tainui is back in Sydney, we expect the Garbin label to be in every closet in Australia!
April 17 to 21 - Spent more time cleaning and buying gear. Charts, books, electronics, new pumps, etc. Wow, it adds up. Especially for two unemployed guys! Brian is now the official ‘sparky’ or electrics wizard, having rebuilt a couple pumps and traced out the wiring for other electrics. We are both learning a bit about diesel engines, while Dan will be taking a radar course and getting a marine radio license. We have set a VERY aggressive schedule to depart at the beginning of next month, but we are actually making good progress. We put up a notice at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, looking for crew and got lots of calls in quick succession! We’ll be scheduling interviews with potential swabbies over the weekend…
The rigging was inspected by Bruce Clarke of Sydney Rigging Specialists, who informed us that, wile the lower rigging looked about 6 or 7 years old, the top halyards looked much older and needed replacing. Ouch – this was one of the things that I had wanted to get checked before the purchase, but never actually got done. This will cost us yet again. We decided to have THE LOT replaced for safety’s sake, scheduling ourselves in for a couple days after the long Easter weekend.
April 22 to 25 – Easter long weekend, so most businesses are closed. However, we did interview five potential crew for the NZ leg and selected two – Yan is from Noumea, New Caledonia and has a bit of boating experience, while Gregor Heyne (whom we called Greg the whole time) is a German backpacker with no sailing experience, but a good attitude!
Brian and Kathleen did the first provisioning run and we inventoried our supplies a we packed them away into Tainui’s many storage spaces.
April 26 – Brian brought the liferaft into the ‘Liferaft Servicing Group’ in Alexandria for testing – fortunately, it doesn’t seem to need much, so it shouldn’t cost a lot… Dan and Brian made the next provisioning run and stowed yet another huge amount of food into the hold…
April 27 – Brian, Dan and Greg motored over to the CYCA to have the mast pulled and the rigging rebuilt – of course, we missed the Spit Bridge opening and had to wait and hour and fifteen minutes for the next one!!! This whole drawbridge thing is getting annoying. So, Brian and Greg cleaned for an hour while Dan crammed for his radio exam this weekend. He only bought the course book yesterday, so he’s got lots of studying to do.
At the CYCA, Bruce and Jason from SRS got to work on the mast, disconnecting all the electrical wires and the antennae – we helped by taking some of the standing rigging apart, asking questions and generally getting in the way. Once the mast was pulled with a wooden crane, the boat looked very bare! Bruce and Jason will work in their shop to make new shrouds for us, while the mast stays at the CYCA for the weekend. At least we didn’t have to wait for the drawbridge when we went home that night.
April 28 to 30 – Dan finally had his radio exam (passed – good job, Dan!), we brought the boat in for the diesel mechanic to work on it – Tim Hudson from TJ’s Marine at Castlecrag. We went through what was critical vs. nice and decided to do all the critical bits and some of the nice bits – we’re delaying taking apart the entire heat exchanger for a while – it’s not broken and could take a bit of work if we start playing with it. In the back of my mind, I remember my last boat, where the engine seized due to a failure in the heat exchanger… but, this is a diesel and a good one, while that was a petrol engine! Hope we’re not kicking ourselves someday in Bora Bora…
The liferaft needed no repairs, but some supplies were out of date – another small fortune for some flares, water and rations. At least we get to keep the old ones to put int our grab bag.