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In this week's episode we're sailing the Whitsundays in Australia! We had expected tropical paradise but... we were quite wrong! We have very blustery conditions and getting to our anchorage proves more challenging than we thought.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Whitsundays. 2021 was proving to be another weird year
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Originally we had planned to take delivery of Ruby Rose to our SeaWind 1370 this year but
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the build had been delayed due to COVID and since we had already sold Ruby Rose last year
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we've been left without a boat. After sailing a SeaWind 1260 around the New South Wales coast
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earlier in the year and absolutely loving it we decided to travel further north to the
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Whitsundays in Queensland and charter another SeaWind 1260. So over the next couple of months
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we'll be bringing you our sailing adventures in Queensland which really put ourselves and
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the boat to the test. So if that sounds like your cup of tea make sure you hit that subscribe button
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but for now let's get on with our first day on board in the Whitsundays. Very very breezy day
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for our first sail in the Whitsundays. I'm pretty excited. I'm also excited to see how this new
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microphone manages the wind because I think that we all know sometimes the audio on our channel is
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not the best because there's often some wind noise so I'm interested let me know how that sounds
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audio wise. Anyway as you can see behind me is an absolutely sunny day. So excited to get out on
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the water. We've literally just picked this boat up. We are going to Hayman Island today. Hayman
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Island is an island in the Whitsundays. Very very beautiful. It's like a private resort kind of place
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and yeah there's somewhere to anchor. Really lovely reef I believe to check out and apparently some
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really sweet sunset views as well. So nice breezy first sail on the water here in the
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Whitsundays. I'm excited to see what this boat can do. I'm pumped. Let's go
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Excited? Yeah. The Whitsundays. The tropics. Waiting for this for a while haven't you? Honestly the feeling of just
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it being like 26, 27 degrees and the humidity. This is to me it's kind of the Caribbean meets
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Australia which is probably the fusion of two of the greatest things on the planet
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So we have a lot of time to sail around these waters, show you all the beauty and majesty of
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the Whitsundays and surrounding areas. So enjoy this. It's gonna be pretty awesome. Shall we get
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going? Let's get going. Wow that is gusting. It must be gusting at least 20 knots
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All right main is up. I think we're gonna have to get rid of that flag. Just gonna drop this
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mooring line and then we can get going to Hayman Island. So we just put the first reef in yeah
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Are you happy? Yeah I wish we had a wind gauge. And a number. So we've got a hawk. Yeah
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17 knots. All right shall I drop the mooring line? You have to come with me because I don't have a tripod on at the minute. There you go
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All right we're off. Off we go. It's gusty. It's definitely gusting over 20 I reckon
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I only think I've went a second reef in at the moment. We'll have to be relying on our tail towers a lot
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Well that was a frantic couple of minutes. That flag's coming down. It's not driving much
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I know. We don't have an anemometer so I can't tell you how strong the wind is but I reckon
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it's at least 22, 23 knots Nick. The wind at the moment is high teens gusting low 20s. The issue is
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that you've got topographical features like that head and we're going around it so you're going to
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get the gust that give you another five knots. If you look at the chart this is what the issue is
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right? The railing wind comes from south southeast right? So the wind will come funneling up there
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It will run around this headland. It comes down the mountain. Yeah so it will run around there and you'll get a wind acceleration around there
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So we put in a second reef into the main and we also
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just filled the jib away because we felt that the boat was being overpowered a little bit
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and yeah that was a bit of a frantic couple of minutes with a boat you're not familiar with
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A little bit of a frantic activity. We got there in the end. I'd still say it was simpler than
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doing it on Ruby Rose as well. Yeah I agree. It didn't take that long actually. All I would say
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to you is I go I know that from our point of view this is a SeaWind 1260 and we're moving towards
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a 1370 but I think that you know the more time we spend on this boat the more we kind of think
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actually we want this you know we're going to want this from our boat and for instance not having
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a second electric winch on starboard. We have got we're getting a second electric winch
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Both our winches are electric. You have to have that winch but I can understand why because we
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have seen many times before boats have their in some cases mains ripped in half by crew
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overzealous crew cranking the winch. I always ask crew to listen for the noise of the winch to hear
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if it's over straining but there's a lot of wind noise at the moment so you know you can't always
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hear it that fluttering. I tell you what I can hear. That fluttering there's a flag flying on the
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topping lift that's coming off as soon as we tie up it's just that's not
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I sail with you know you sail with your ears as well don't you
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Yeah. Bleeding hey? Very very gusty
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I've taken the clutch off the main sheet. Okay. Wow my sunglasses were getting blown off my head
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You all right? I'd say that's gusting at least I don't know I reckon that must be close to 30
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Yeah I know. I think the wind's going to die down it's coming straight down there right literally on the beam
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at the moment right which means that it's coming through that cut and funneling through within
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maybe a mile or so we'll have relief on that land. I wasn't expecting this
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What's our speed? 7.7 knots. Nick and I just got like sprayed with water. I didn't know that happened in the catamaran
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I was just monohull sailing. We took the sails down it's getting a little bit uh nerve-wracking
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so just under bare poles at the moment. So
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all right we made it we're here in Hayman Island. Oh wow I'm feeling very windswept and salty. That was far more intense than I was expecting for
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the sail in the wet Sundays to be honest. I thought it would be like a little bit like
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Thailand where there was basically no wind and we just kind of motored around a little bit
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Well we are uh tucked in nicely here we're on a mooring buoy and we have an absolutely stunning
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vista. Beautiful beach in front of us and apparently some pretty sweet sunsets from
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here as well. Oh god how lovely and relaxing after a fairly hectic morning. You look knackered
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I'm absolutely right that was a really not challenging sail but it was a tough it was
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it was rough. So I think we had we must have had 25 knocking well high 20s I think it hit 30 knots
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The anemometer on the boat's uh up the fritz so um I think it's probably a masthead issue
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Um I'm not going up there it's not my boat. So yeah I think we had 25 plus and knots of wind
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really short chop and six foot of swell but with a really short swell period. Just a tiring sail
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You know we started no reefs one one one run reef two reefs and I thought well actually we need to
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put the third reef in because we're hitting 25 knots consistently and then we just dropped the
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main and motored the last hour or two. Yeah and that's the reward for for this but yeah I look I
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kind of I'm tired. All right cup of chai tea pretty excited about this. It's surprisingly cool today I mean I know
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it was very windy but I was actually quite chilly so a nice warming cup of tea. It's just the ticket
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Nick what do you want for lunch? Anything. Doing something with avocado because we need to eat this avocado
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So um
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We came ashore just now to go for a walk and uh literally there is no sand there is just pieces
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of coral and we could not walk more than five meters on bare feet so Nick went back to get my
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flip-flops thongs to my fellow Australians and uh yeah so now we can go for a walk
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This world of ticking clocks I hope I'm getting through. Like sunsets are magical aren't they? I know I sound like some sort of like mushroom infused
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like wizard at the moment but look I know there's a natural beauty here just the tonality between the blue and the
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and the golden I mean look at those colors
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