Auckland Anniversary Weekend

Today, last year I was up in the maternity ward of Auckland Hospital with the midwife admiring all the boats sailing past while Cecile was giving birth to our daughter Eloise. This year I had hoped to be sailing my canoe.

During the week I mounted a stainless steel plate on the leeboard and on Friday night I fitted the mounting bracket on the inside of the hull. I used a length of 3mm aluminium angle bracket which I extended past the seat for a more forward position. It’s screwed to the gunwales, seat and a block underneath, I hope its strong enough to take the pressure.

On Saturday I cut and glued together several lengths of wood to make a seat frame. My plan was to weave the seat:

This was finished by the evening with me making a mistake or two. But it works:

So I was all set to go sailing on Monday. Except of course the weather didn’t co-operate. With winds gusting 30-35 knots I thought it best to pass. Fortunately I got an offer to sail on Viking which I gladly accepted.

So no outing on the canoe but I still had a great day sailing!

Success! (Video at the bottom)

What was supposed to be bad weather turned into a beautiful day, so frustrated interruptions to my plans I decided to push ahead and make my first test sail. Options for launching were the Manukau Harbour or St Heliers beach. I settled for St Heliers because

• It’s a sandy child friendly beach
• There is vehicle access right to the waterline
• its tidal and with low tide I could go out a fair distance and still be in standing depth in case I capsized.

So after loading up and bundling the children, Cecile and Mum into the car we arrive at the beach:

Once everything was set up we set off across the shallows to deeper water:

As you can see it draws very little water.

With the water above my knees I set up the mast and started paddling.

The final job I need to do before I can say that it’s complete is to mount the leeboard on the side of the hull. Since this involves drilling another hole into the hull and there is some science in it positioning (get it wrong and the boats handling characteristics change) I had hoped to test several different positions to find the best one.

So using a couple of clamps I secured the leeboard to the side in what should be the right place. With the rudder down and the leeboard secured I pulled in some sheet and off we went! Speed was quickly picking up when I made my first mistake of the day; Gary does not recommend cleating in the mainsheet but did I listen? No so with the boom on the starboard side and speed picking up the ama started to lift and I had no hiking seat, I was heading to my first capsize! So I eased sheet and found that I couldn’t!

Capsize was averted by turning into the wind but I learnt my lesson.

Then my second mistake of the day happened; I had grossly underestimated the strain placed on the leeboard and one of the clamps holding it snapped! Putting an end to any notions I had of testing different positions. However with one clamp and eased sheets I was able to get a couple of minutes sailing:

The canoe is light and I was going at a nice pace in the light winds so I can see that it will be fun and challenging in stronger winds. Yesterday I picked up some lengths of bamboo that I will be using to hike out on in the future. As it was even the short sail I had today was fantastic.

The only other improvement I need to make is work out a simple way to keep the rudder down while underway. I’ll probably resort to the old fashioned pin.

Back on shore I spent the rest of the afternoon paddling out and back, first with Mum and then with Cecile. In the light winds the boat is easy to paddle, but once the wind picks up because it’s so light and rides high out of the water the wind turns it side on. Not a problem when the sail is up though!

Cecile climbing aboard (by this time the tide was coming back in)

Paddling:

Nico joining in:

End on the day, waiting to be packed up:

One minute sailing video

(and yes, I’ve lost count of which week it is )

Picked up a Stowaway

Well we are back in New Zealand again, and just in the nick of time too, avoiding cyclone Vanias’ landfall by a matter of hours.

On arrival I found this little fellow attached to one of the straps securing the tarpaulin to the hull:

I’m going to have to be extra careful removing that one.

Work has slowly commenced again, I’ve built the rudder/outboard mounting bracket and given it two coats of primer, mounted the rudder brackets on the rudder and built the mast head to attach the sail to.

Of course with my luck being the way it is, it looks like we’ve brought the weather from New Caledonia (rain) with us! I’m hoping that I’ll get a break in the weather to go on a test sail before the weekend (when we are off to Taupo of the jousting).

Pirogue

French for dug-out canoe.

I finally got to go to the Museum of New Caledonia to have a look at their collection of outrigger canoes. It has been a while since I was there last but I do recall them having some on display. As it turned out I was in for a bit of a disappointment; there were only two pirogues on display, a small (2-3m dug-out) canoe with a thin outrigger and a life-sized replica of a double hulled pirogue, I’m not sure if it counts as an outrigger but it certainly appears to be a proa.

My second disappointment was that there was a ban on photographing the exhibitions. Reasoning that it was to prevent damage from the flash, I turned mine off and took some photos of the double-hulled proa on the sly. It did mean that I had to use my point and shoot camera instead of my DSLR so please forgive the poor quality.

The netting is a turtle net and unfortunately the information board was in French so I don’t know if it ever sailed.

 

The hulls are decked over the top with the planks tied down with coconut fibre rope, in the Kanak style for their larger sailing pirogues. The top decking has access holes so that the inside of the hull can be reached.

Truth be told, I’m impressed with how well my Canon D10 performed in these conditions.

Some Canoe Photos

But we’re still on holiday.

This is from a photo in our room and shows Kanak proa:

The local museum has a nice collection Kanak proas’ on display and I hope to be checking them out this coming week.

Today we visited the Ile of Pines and next to where we were swimming was this old dug-out hull:

Close up of the hull sides:

It was a bit beyond restoration.

As you can see the weather was against us today with the islands three month drought being broken on the weekend we went to visit.