Journal Entries

September 2005

1 September - Last month went by so quickly. I have been flat out with work and really neglecting what I have to do on the boat. It is easy to get side tracked and caught up with the world racing around me. I really need to take some time out right now and focus on where I am going. On the 16th of this month I'm planning to take a trip out to another classic yacht regatta. I'm really looking forward to getting away again and need to get new lifelines installed and a hot water solution organised. I'm sure when I return from that trip I will be able to focus more clearly on the boat. I'm hoping to get plenty of good photos this next trip.

2 September - Thank you to those people who have recently sent me emails about my website. It is really is nice to know that people are reading it. Also my apologies if I haven't emailed in response personally as I am having trouble sending emails. I'll try to fix it as soon as possible. I should say a special thanks to Don from New Mexico who wrote to me pointing out a fault with one of the links. Thanks Don, your email and kind comments were appreciated.

I had completely forgotten about an event which is happening this weekend. It is known as "Riverfire". The idea is the Brisbane river comes alight with fireworks. Last year was an enormous display extending several kilometres along the river. Fortunately I have one of the best vantage points. Thousands of people line the banks of the river to watch the display and this is finished off with a fly over by an Australian airforce F1-11 which performs a "dump & burn". While it is an impressive display, it does seem a little hypocritical when the government on the one hand enforces (with heavy fines) strict pollution legislation for something as minor as a noisy or smoking car, yet they permit all of the smoke and noise associated with fireworks and an airforce jet flying at low altitude, dumping and burning what must be hundreds of litres of jet fuel, all in the name of entertainment. I'll get some photos tomorrow night and post them on the site.

4 September - Yesterday all the boats started arriving in the river for Riverfire. Fortunately I have a great position in the marina and don't have to deal with finding a place on anchor in the river.

Everyone wants to be near the bridge, as this is where most of the fireworks go off. It's crazy how all these boats try to jamb into the one spot. Many of them aren't used to the river and don't realise that when the tide turns they will all swing around. The current is also very fast (up to 4knots) and that means plenty of anchor chain out and a large arc to swing. Below is the start of the tide turning. There were plenty of collisions and a great deal of cursing.

This is the view from the back of my boat. People are starting to arrive to watch from the boardwalk which overlooks the marina.

Below is the old steam tug boat "Forceful" which takes tourists up the river on a historic cruise.

Below is one of the barges which carry the fireworks. I saw three of these being pushed up the river by tugs. The fireworks are also placed on top of many of the high rise buildings along the river.

More boats still arriving at dusk. The big one to the left is the Tangalooma Resort ferry, which is known as the Tangalooma Flyer. It is the fastest way to get over to Moreton Island.

And the first of the fireworks erupting from the story bridge.

More fireworks further up river.

looking down river to the Story Bridge, taken from back on deck.

The finale of the night is the dump and burn by the airforce jets. Unfortunately I can't take credit for the following photos. There are two F1-11's flying through the centre of the city and they finish by climbing vertically until out of sight. If you can imagine the noise of these jets at low altitude with the crowd cheering. It is quite a spectacle.

The photo below is taken from a distance looking back at the city. The F1-11's are on their vertical climb.

11 September - I am finally making some progress toward getting things done on the boat. Last week I sent away my lifelines to be replaced and hopefully they will be ready early this week.

I also bought some new batteries. I currently have 4 trojan 6volts running in series, giving me 220 amp hours. One of the batteries is showing a reduced voltage so I decided to get rid of all of them and change over to Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) batteries. There are numerous advantages in using AGM batteries and I will feel so much better knowing there is no gas in the engine room. I'm sure this gas contributes to corrosion of the motor and wiring. I will provide photos on the new battery installation and plan to write a short article on the difference between the old technology trojans and the AGMs. The new setup will provide 300 amp hours at 12 volts. I am actually more than doubling my battery supply despite only apparently increasing it by 80 amp hours and I will explain how this is possible in the article.

I will also order my new water tank this week (having obtained a reasonable quote). It will hold 213 litres and the old aluminium tanks will go. Despite the old aluminium tanks being only a couple of years old, there is already corrosion within. I constantly get white powdery bits in the water and upon inspection of the interior of the tanks I can see white clusters on the tank walls. I have not been using the tanks for drinking water, but merely washing up etc. I will also eventually get an additional 50 litre poly tank which I will use solely for the water maker supply. This will avoid any accidental contamination of the main tank and allow me to transfer the freshly made water to the main tank once I am certain it is clean.

16 September - I was supposed to go sailing this weekend to the classic regatta at Scarborough. However it seems something is telling me not to go. I had planned to leave Thursday night, then I was required to be at work urgently on Friday morning, so I planned to leave Friday afternoon, then last night I realised my batteries were very low. At some point during the day the 240v shorepower had disconnected. I finished work early today (Friday) to investigat the problem as I didn't want to come back on Sunday night and have to deal with it. To worsen the situation the weather has turned bad and strong wind warnings have been issued. They are expecting 30-40knots. So after spending 4 hours this afternoon chasing wiring with the multimeter I decided to not go. It is now 10pm on Friday night and I haven't completely resolved the problem but have made a temporary fix. The good news is that the power line running from the dock to the boat was faulty. The bad news is that it was one of those special American Marinco. fittings which are not available here. So I had to remove the shorepower plug on the boat and try to replace it with a standard Australian fitting. After removing the fitting it was evident that the wiring had deteriorated to such a degree I didn't feel comfortable leaving it in. I have decided that I will buy new 240v wiring and replace the 30year old wires which now exist.

A good thing did come of it however. Whilst at the hardware shop, I stumbled across some really nice bronze halogen light fittings. I have been wanting to replace the flourescent lighting onboard for some time with halogen light fittings and installing those new LED globes. If you haven't seen them, they look exactly like a halogen globe, but consist of 26 white LED's. The current draw is a tiny 0.6 amps compared with about 2amps. It may not seem like much but it all adds up. Plus they have an extremely long life span. Below is a picture of the new light fitting. I will have to have some timber bases made for them so they can sit just off the ceiling as there is no cavity between the cabin top and ceiling.

18 September - It is a beautiful night tonight. The weather is quite stormy and the tide is right up to the boardwalk. It is a strange feeling being right in the middle of the city surrounded by highrise buildings and having people walk along the boardwalk only a matter of metres away. I am actually looking down on them now because the water level is so high. It is a good feeling to be able to just relax by myself and not have to worry about other people. I probably should be more sociable, but I think I'm going to be spending much of my life alone, and that's the way I like it.