Took a 3% hit on my portfolio today so I thought I would talk about boating.
After the 3rd attempt, we finally got the boat in the water about 3 weeks ago. Ironically, we used the Breaky Creek ramp on a very high tide and she drifted off the trailer.
We took her up the river towards the city and messed around a little, then put her to bed at Dockside Marina.
Must say I was quite impressed on the un-named boats (Any suggestions?) performance, considering it weighs around 2.5 ton.
Last week I grabbed the best sort I could find, and we headed for the mouth of the river. It was a windy day and there was quite alot of windage from the centre cabin but the vessel still motored around 12 knots at 4000 revs which I was quite pleased with. Stopped at Rivergate and filled up with fuel. It was so rough it took a while as the fuel nozzle kept on cutting as the boat went side to side in the water. We punched it up to 15 knots when conditions suited, and that was about the limit, but I could sense the better economy at 4000 revs. The swell was running about 1.5 to 2 metres, and we coped a boat load of the river if I didn't time it well, but she was very sound and on a better day we would have headed straight through the mouth. We decided to duck into the calm water near the Lytton bridge, anchor, and have a beve... We were not the only ones, nearly everyone turned back that day.
That was pretty well enough for the first test, she fits under the Lytton bridge, which is an amazing bonus, ran at about 12 litres per hour, and everything worked as it should. The pontoons were very impressive, and only half a metre draft, so could pull in anywhere and go anywhere.
Since then I have been doing some tinkering and thinking, planing for the summer. Going to start moving on the excellent advice from this post (thankyou guys), do some refurb, and hopefully catch up with a couple of you on the water!
Next week I might attempt the Gold Coast sojorn. Probably take me the best part of a day, but I'll have my son with me and we might do some fishing.
A guy at the marina recons I could get to Moreton on a South Easterly running under 10 knots. He recons its a piece of cake especially if you can get under the Lytton bridge. I'll give it a go one of these days.
Anyway, will update as it unfolds, cheers Gundini