Mirror.Dinghy"Tilman"

I got out for another sail today. As a stiff southeasterly had been blowing for severs  days, the ocean swells were up and sailing conditions remained fairly lively. When I told my barriers I was off sailing, he mumbled something about the wet weather and looked at me like I was slightly crazy ... but "I drink coffee and go sailing to sustain my sanity" I pleaded fruitlessly.    Never one to be put off, I monitored to a launching place, slightly sheltered and to  windward of a large bay. It's a great place, an ex WWII Catalina base on Lake Macquarie. No  surprises, I had the place t  myself. I toyed with the idea of hoisting the main alone, but being a thrillseeker, I gave it everything ensuring everything was set fairly flat.   I initially bore off downwind, I'm a sucker for anchored yachts, there were three in that direction and as I squirted past, I got some waves from those onboard tucked in behind their spray dodgers.  I was little bothered...

While towing Tilman to our favourite sailing grounds on Friday, I was being tortured by guilt. I should be parenting, working, cleaning house etc. My ex-wife played no small part in making me feel ashamed of sailing, it's something I feel guilty over letting her get away with.    Anyway, the Dalai Llama offers me excellent guidance:

   In middle age my penchant for finding a personal philosophy of life is bearing fruit.    I've long been reflecting on the positive emotional benefits of work. Not work one does as an employee necessarily, just that work that has meaning or purpose for the worker themselves. I developed the notion that "through work we gain freedom". For me it captured an idea that through work we gain confidence, maintain health and provide for our individual needs. Just recently I read the following in Tilman's Greenland book: "Strenuousness is the immortal path and sloth is the way of death". Slightly more dramatic than my own, but apt if we define death broadly as personal esteem, life-purpose and personal motivation and our creative being.   Now I am working on an observation of the ways in which people claim moral worth to justify their actions. I note a speech by Northern Territory's ex-Chief Minister Clair Martin, justifying changing laws to allow Xstrata Min...

    Working up stream Downwind, light air Finished for the day Friday I had Tilligerry Creek to explore. In favourable conditions, f2 x SE and ebb flow of 2 knots, we headed upstream a ways. On the wind watching the sails, the geology of the shoreline and moored craft was both relaxing and enjoyable.   This creek is reputed to be polluted by PFAS chemicals from the local RAAF base, but there was plenty of oyster farming and fishing going on so perhaps there will be many cancers down the track.    Oystercatchers, osprey and game if not tame pelicans were seen. And a sailor working on his cruising yacht said lovely things about Tilman under sail.    

I was all set for a great salty Easter weekend. My tow vehicle had its scrubbed out and worn bar treads replaced with a full set of Pirelli Scorpion mud tyres, TILMAN had been sailed and tuned-up over several months of weekend cruising and all  her weaknesses addressed, I'd coaxed my son with  massive block of chocolate to keep me company, but fate had something else in mind.    On the way out I got a flat tyre. So change it right? Well, normally I would, but the tyre shop had no tubes in stock and couldn't repair my spare. So I was buggered on Easter Saturday afternoon (shops closed for the day). A much used term came to mind,SNAFU (Situation Normal All F#@+ed Up), but in the spirit of Tilman we accept this as normal and just work through it, learning and benefiting from the experience.    The good news is that I met a fellow Land Rover enthusiast who donated an already repaired inner tube, learned how to change a tyre by hand, and got the rig, dog, my s...

Today, a short sail only. Not for want of trying, just that wind and tide were against us.    I launched at my favourite beach and as usual it was quiet ( only one other trailer in the car park). Getting off the beach was tricky as the 8knot SE wind was directly onshore, and the bottom shoals for 30 yards or so.To stem the leeway I put only light pressure on the hull by trimming the jib only, set the rudder blade flat across the surface and tailored along. Once out enough, down went the board, rudder blade and on with the main sheet. We shouldered a healthy breeze on the nose and despite slow headway to windward, there's pleasure in having any vessel doing her best, slicing along into wind and wave. A rather strange humming vibration came into play each time we hit top speed to windward, and it was such that I could figure whether it was coming from aloft or below the waterline. It did remind me of a noise surfboards would make if a bead of resin had been left on the fin...

It's difficult to determine anywhere near accurately, why, how I wanted to go do guy cruising. My father randomly bought a Vaucluse Junior dinghy for me and my brothers when we were barely teens. The early life experiences bite deeply, but in more recent times, reading the Swallows and Amazons series was an inspiration too. "Houses, are but badly built boats so firmly aground that you cannot think of moving them. They are definitely inferior things, belonging to the vegetable not the animal world, rooted and stationary, incapable of gay transition. I admit, doubtfully, as exceptions, snail-shells and caravans. The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting-place. It is for that reason, perhaps, that, when it comes, the desire to build a boat is one of those that cannot be resisted. It begins as a little cloud on a sere...