What's up? Just did a few shifts in the bus in a row like three or four days. Having next two days off then Tuesday thru Saturday inclusive so nothing off til Sunday next week after these two days.
I booked a hotel nearby work and my boat for the Mrs and the girls for tomorrow night as it's Easter and there's a four day weekend. It's the Newport mirage, next to the Newport Arms bar. Now haven't been in the Newport Arms yet however it's understood there's a public wharf behind it and I'm interested to see if I can slip onto it with my boat.
This maneuver with a boat (tying onto a wharf) looks easy when you watch an experienced person, however for someone like me, damaging the hull is a real possibility so I really need to carefully practice this maneuver. I'm not really worried about the rope tying, it's more a matter of gently maneuvering the boat with the motor carefully to the wharf without banging into it too abruptly. I have two fenders to tie onto the boarding side of the boat which buffers the bang between the wharf and hull. On my boat these two fenders are like double thick and strong baseball bases but on other boats they're commonly plastic full of air, quite buoyant and bouncy. I have a plastic fender like this also for the stern like if you tie a rowboat to the stern it protects the hull from bashing onto that.
Also I haven't raised the topsail (front sail) yet. So far only the mainsail and I was lucky not to get killed by a flying boom so I've learned the danger of this first hand.
In coming weeks my short term skill goals are practicing slipping on and off wharves and sailing with the two sails up (and keeping the mainsail boom hooked on so it doesn't swing and kill me or someone else).
I'll most likely be bringing guests about in coming weeks, non family folks, male buddies, so I want to get up to speed. I'm also looking forward to night sailing and sailing into the ocean in coming months.
Really I should probably look at getting another fender. I also have a USB charger which sticks into the boat's cigarette lighter socket and today I purchased an actual electrical socket which sticks into the cigarette lighter and provides 150 watts electrical wall socket (which in Australia are like the ones in China.)
I'm having issues with windows 10 and want to revert to windows 7. Ideally I'm hoping 150 watts can charge my laptop computer so I can fix it and permanently keep it on the Red Herring.
I'm still warming up to all this boating jazz. I'm not going to shell out 100 grand or more for a shit-hot yacht if I'm not up to it. The Red Herring is the perfect test vehicle to see if I can manage long distance sailing. Obviously by year's end I should be sailing to Sydney Harbour from Pittwater and back.
Tonight would be a good night to initiate my first nighttime maneuver on the Red Herring as it's a full moon. However it's been a long week and I'd prefer to probably just hunker down and sleep. Dormir primo.
Gonna head over now, from work it's a ten minute drive but I'll stop to get water.
Moments later, I did do the nighttime maneuver. I found the Red Herring has a working stern white light however I'm not sure if it's compliant with the regulations. Certainly too much light causes inability to see much as your eyes can't adjust to the dark. Especially when there's plenty of moonlight. Will have to research this issue.
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