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In an earlier life I had a Freedom 22, with a freestanding carbon mast. The base of the mast came loose from its step once in a wind on tide situation. Even in a small boat this was a nightmare, sold the boat the next month and moved on.

Yep, the thing to remember about Tasmanian public servants is that they have all reached their level of incompetence and there is nowhere left to go…

Just don’t make the mistake of standing in the same line as passengers from Nicaragua at LAX…

Doesn’t sound pleasant Estar, but anyone who says they travelled to Oz direct from South America on a sailboat is going to get the full body search. Lots of examples of tons of illegal substances intercepted on private yachts around here. Mind you, I don’t hear anyone complaining about tight...

Yep, I have a friend who did a 360 in his steel Nereia when he was hit by a rogue wave round there…  I haven’t seen one when we have been round there,  but I always head east from Melbourne, never south.

It’s also difficult to avoid bad weather when you have fronts crossing from the southern ocean every two to three days and limited roadstead anchorages on the northeastern Tasmanian coast and Bass Strait. Not to mention the West Coast. Round here you will regularly experience heavy weather...

I am inclined to take a different approach, sometimes shit just happens. To my mind, trained on clinical and epidemiological data, nearly all the data sets here are so weak that it is advisable to prepare for the worst. It’s like a screening test with a high rate of false positives or false...

No surprise there, everyone down here is related…

There is this thing where if two Tasmanians meet anywhere in the world, a third Tasmanian turns up. It has happened to us a couple of times…

We weren’t born in Tasmania…

So if I have ten brothers and sisters, does that make my family well connected?

Kiki and Thies spent quite a while around Barnes Bay, we’re you there at the same time as well?

Curlew had a complete cold moulded hull built over the original carvel one, the Carrs spent a couple of years down here in a Hobart back in the day. IIRC the hull work was done in NZ..

Estars Winston Churchill post makes my point, in some circumstances a rollover is inevitable and what matters is how the boat and crew survive. I recall seeing a paper recently that described the conditions that lead to that sort of rogue wave, it suggested cross seas at 120 degrees was the...

Actuallly, iy we include the lowers, the mast is supported at three levels.

The boat is 1100 nm away at the moment, best pic I have on file. Hard to see the soldier stay, it goes from the inner forestay to a couple of feet aft of the lowers.

I have a case study of one, our V40 no 101 has done three 360’s in its long and busy life, still has the original rig. The first in the 1983 BOC  RTW race east of Cape Town, some boom damage, sailed back upwind to the Cape and then finished the race in fifth place. The other two were off New...

Interesting discussion on capsize, especially the rubbery relationship between design characteristics and capsize history. My take is capsize is a rare event, determined by multiple variables, and what matters is the boat doesn’t sink under you, you are not seriously injured, and the boat...

Thats a pretty small amount of ballast for a 47 footer, especially one with a board..