Hafskip

Showing category "Getting things sorted" (Show all posts)

Meat and Mainsail

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Sunday, October 24, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

As life's pleasures go, food is second only to sex. Except for salami and fresh bread after a long day’s sailing. Now that's better than sex, but only if the salami is thickly sliced.

The trick therefore is to ensure one has sufficient preserved meat for a few months at sea!

So what do you do?...you buy a 3 kilo slab of the stuff and then try and work out where you can hang it without getting concussed when it swings through the cabin on a 30 degree heel. Unfortunately concussion is inevi...


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Close to God

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Friday, October 15, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

 You know I wasn't aware of it until I attempted it but it appears I have a little salt water in my veins. Apparently our earliest known ancestor from Australia was a crew member on a passenger/cargo ship based in Sydney (he died in a rescue attempt at sea leaving behind a wife and 3 kids – the state offered one crown in compensation), and we also had a great, great grandfather who was a steam boat captain trading on the Murray......apparently even my father was a water baby....he designed ...


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Taking stock

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Sunday, October 10, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

Thought it was time to take stock of all that has been achieved and that which remains to be done!

You may remember our exceptionally long list of things to do, check and buy…well somehow (almost magically) the list increased…. You see when you start with the ‘lets antifoul the boat’ point on the list there lies beneath it a range of sub categories and points that need to be attended to at the same time. Similarly the ‘let’s install additional solar panels and radar equipment’ ...


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Ho Hum

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Sunday, October 3, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

The weather’s been brackish the last few days….. not sure whether that’s a weather term but it’s appropriate for my current mood. The wind has been constant, grey skies and damp rather than wet….It’s not the kind of weather that inspires focussed and productive activity aimed at gearing us up for our journey… so I’ve been dabbling instead.

I’ve attempted a few things that need to be done…like removing the mouldy smell from the aft cupboard (yes we already have mould) and ...


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A note on change

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Tuesday, September 21, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

Over the last 4 months I’ve gone from well-paid and talented HR professional (even if I do say so myself) living in my own home with 2 horses, 2 dogs and fully maintained company car with a circle of close friends who shared my hobbies, to a completely ignorant, nautical dwelling, grotty yachty (common term for boat people not arriving illegally to Australian shores).

Instead of crawling out of bed, spending half an hour in the bathroom, straightening my hair and applying my face, then do...


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Totally wired

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Wednesday, September 15, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

We have wiring!! And it’s connected!! Our brand new and rather spectacular Lowrance broadband radar is up and running!!!

Sonar is connected as well and our new charts are locked and loaded. It’s a damn incredible piece of technology… the radar can be superimposed on charts, so not only can you see what’s out there, you can see where it is on a chart.

The display lets you split the screen and watch the sonar at the same time… so you get a very cool submarine ‘ping’ thing going ...


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Freedom

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Sunday, September 12, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

Well we’re free…. As much of the critical work that needed to be done while Hafskip was on hard stand has been done! 7 straight days of hard labour! Lost a lot of sweat and scratched a lot of mosquito and midge bites in the process but it does feel good to have had the chance to get underneath our boat and know her a little more intimately.

We had more that we would have liked to have finished but given how tricky it can be to sand, grind, drill, solder, thread wiring, mount stainless st...


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Levitation

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Friday, September 3, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

After nearly a month on the mooring we’ve finally made it into Dry dock. This is where the work really starts!

Hafskip is in desperate need of an antifoul and we’ve had to wait for a high enough tide to get us into Edges Boatyard. I don’t think we really appreciated this until we actually navigated the narrow channel through the mangroves to get there, at one point there was no more than 10 centimetres under the hull…but Ralph kept his cool and we gently docked in the tiny slipway (...


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Storage, Sewage and Salmon-tail catfish

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Sunday, August 29, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

One of the basic realities of life on board a boat is a limit to storage….this impacts on our voyage scope and extends to everything…food supplies, fuel tanks, batteries, water capacity…and even the toilet has a limit! So one of our key tasks is to increase storage/capacity where ever it’s possible…or make sure we can ensure continuous supply! (NB: please exclude the toilet, continuous supply is assured here)  

In terms of fuel for the engine and gennie we bring diesel on board and...


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Careful placement of dominos

Posted by Penny Goldfinch on Thursday, August 26, 2010, In : Getting things sorted 

Lucky the weather has been a tad lack lustre over the last couple of days…it’s helped getting some route planning done…. What does that mean?....research and more research is what it means. We’re up on hard stand next week for a about a week doin’ the tough stuff…but after that we really do need to be heading north to be sure we can position ourselves nicely for a coral sea crossing which would see us in Papua New Guinea by October.

Why October?.. Quite simple really….we want t...


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