My father has just purchased a well known 30ft yacht in Cairns and I will be sailing it back to tassie with him.

We will most likely be leaving early august for the trip back.
WE WILL BE CRUISING.
No set time line but looking at 2 - 3 months for the journey.

We will be sailing 2 up most of the journey, Will have 1 or 2 extra crew for the bass straight.

Have some racing experience in tassie but first time cruising.

Any body have good internet research sites, is this the best sailing forum for Aus?

Would also like to hear from anybody who has done this trip or simular, especially heading south as aposed to north.

When you are doing the leg from the Gold Coast to Sydney, it is a good idea to plan on doing it non stop.

Upon exiting the Gold Coast Seaway head ESE straight out to the edge of the continental shelf where you will pick up a current that will carry you south at 3 to 5 knots. I think it is there most times of the year but do some research to find the best times.

You should still be able to see the coast from there all the way down and have good VHF radio contact with the various Marine Rescue Stations. Maintain a good radio watch and keep your scheds. They get very annoyed if you don't and if you do not let the last station know when you transit to the next station coverage area.

If you hug the coast on this leg you will be pushing into a backwashing current and the entrances are not user friendly, most of them being "bar entrances". Scary in calm weather and terrifying in rough weather.

I also suggest you have three aboard from the Gold Coast onwards. It is a big trip you are planning.

Cairns to the Gold Coast will be a good shakedown cruise for you before the big blue briney part further south.

The Queensland coast can be done in fairly easy, roughly 50 mile daily runs with plenty of island anchorages and ports to enter.

My suggestions are:-
Cairns to the Frankland Islands F Is to Mourilyan Harbour (Hole in the Green Wall) M Hr to Dunk Island avoid Hinchinbrook Passage and go D Is to Palm Island (aboriginal reserve so you can't land, anchor at the south west end in Challenger Bay) Palm to Magnetic (good for food shopping instead of Townsville).

From here you have a lot of easting to make before you get to the Whitsundays so make sure you have plenty of fuel on board.

Get an early start or slip across to Cape Cleveland the afternoon before, then, avoiding Cape Bowling Green, go to Cape Upstart and anchor in close to where the houses are. Then Upstart to Bowen, Bowen to Airlie or Hamilton Is, from there to Mackay or Scawfell Island from there to Digby Is (an almost land locked anchorage) then nobody ever misses going to Middle Percy Island.

From there put in a big day and get to Pearl Bay or even Port Clinton. This part of the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area so check on the radio with marine rescue to see if there is anything going on. From there to Great Keppell Island but the resort is shut down so you could go into Rosslyn Bay where there is a great marina.

It would be a good idea to avoid going down the Narrows unless you have a deal going with the sand flies, so I would go to Cape Capricorn and the next day on to Pancake Creek or Lady Musgrave Island. You might like to go into Round Hill Creek at the Town Of 1770 but check with Marine Rescue for the bar conditions.

Next stop is Bundaberg, highest volume port of entry in Australia for international cruising yachts and my home town. It has three marina complexes one of which is in the heart of the city. Excellent facilities here for anything to do with yacht repairs etc, so you might like to give me a ring if you need a hand with anything or even to just say gidday.

From here to the Gold Coast is easy stuff via the Great Sandy Straits, Mooloolaba and Moreton Bay.

If you are not going to be spending a couple of months exploring the Queensland Coast, apart from the appropriate charts, the only publication I recommend for Qld is the government published "Maritime Safety Queensland's Beacon to Beacon Directory" for $40. It has everything need for inshore navigation between Gladstone and the Gold Coast and more.

For longer term cruising there is "100 Magic Miles of the Whitsunday Coast" and Noel Patrick's "Cruising the Curtis Coast" (Mackay to Bundaberg).

Considering the yacht is only a 30 footer, have you considered having it trucked to Melbourne. If you take the costs of sailing her down and time off work etc, you may find it more economical.

Cheers Cisco PS This could be a good link. http://www.boatbooks.com.au/

If you are day sailing only a crew of two is excellent and will usually build a great companionship.

However if you are overnight sailing having three aboard lightens the work load on the individuals tremendously.

Even on short trips with only two aboard fatigue can set in quite early. Keep in mind "Fatigue makes cowards of us all."

On one short trip with only two of us we were reduced to doing half hour watches with the off watch sleeping in the cockpit because we were both so tired.

It was calm weather and as we were motoring only so the only thing we had to do was maintain a true course. Put some rough weather into the equation and you could have a recipe for disaster.

If you can get from the Gold Coast to Sydney with out having a good blow coming through, you will be very lucky.

Also keep in mind Murphy's first Law "If anything can go wrong, it will."

It sounds like the boat is well found and quite capable so you are streets ahead to start with. If your Dad is in Cairns with the boat now and you are not leaving until June, he will have plenty of time to resolve any defects the boat might have before you leave.

The Salar 40 that I went to Sydney on was a delivery trip. It had been brought from Cairns to Bundaberg by one party who abandoned it at the marina in Bundaberg. I was contacted by the owner and asked if I would bring it the rest of the way.

I told him I would take the boat for a sail first then give him an answer. There was an issue with the stern gland that I managed to resolve plus some other problems that I thought were fixable so I agreed.

By the time we got to Tin Can Bay the starter motor problem was becoming major and the owner ended up flying up to come on the trip anyway.

Taking all the unnecassary gear off the boat and freighting it I think is a must do. It will give you more room, less weight and therefore better performance. Looking forward to further discussion.

PS. It is not a good idea to post your email address on the forum. It is an open invitation to spammers. You might like to edit it out while you still can.

By the way, what is the boat, any pics and what sort of history has she got???

Hi Ben, Going by the photos I would pick her as a Peterson Santana 30 or an S&S 30. I lean towards the Santana and if that is what she is you have an excellent design of boat.

I had a Peterson 42 which was magic. Be she Santana or Sparkman & Stephens doesn't matter because both are excellent. I believe both were designed as IOR half tonners and as such will be very well balanced, fast and can power to windward.

One of the beautiful things about these fin keelers is how they "heave to". If you have been sailing along and for some reason you want to stop for 5 minutes or 5 hours, say for a sleep or to have a meal or to fix something, it is a very simple excercise.

If you have been reaching or running, bring the boat around to be close hauled and if necessary shorten sail to suit the wind conditions. Cleat the sheets off and then do not touch them. Now put the helm right over steering to leeward and gybe the boat. Don't worry, nothing will break. As the sails are close hauled all that will happen is the main will flick through the gybe, the head sail will backwind, the boat will stop in about it's own length and everything will be quiet all of a sudden.

Keep the helm right over and once you are happy with it, tie the helm off. The boat should make about a half a knot to windward and if you have sufficient sea room and the wind does not increase, you can leave it like that for hours.

You might find that some small adjustment is necessary depending on the exact balance characteristics of your boat but on my boat it worked exactly as I have described. We used this technique for man overboard retrieval when 8 of us were examined for our AYF Offshore Yacht Masters Certificates by Capt John Armstrong of the Gold Coast Marine College. It brought us onto the man overboard bouy every time.

The eight of us were Master Class 5s that were operating various sailing charter vessels out of Cairns and Port Douglas. We all wanted to bridge over to AYF Offshore Yacht Master qualification which is the common point with Master Class 5 USL code. We all pooled our money and flew Capt John up for the weekend. We sailed out to Fitzroy Island for the night and had a great time together. Capt John was a real gentleman but just imagine it. One boat and nine captains.

So you might like to think about the "heaving to" technique and practise it in moderate conditions a few times. It may save yours or someone elses life one day.

Re your question on free navigation software. I will private mail you on that one. Cheers Cisco

Thanks for the info cisco this is all a great help.

We will be on the internet, thought it would be extremely helpful to do so and if I can get my hands on some of the software you have mentioned I am sure that will be a great help.

We will ofcourse maintain radio contact as you have mentioned.

It is looking like the journey south may be delayed for a few months now as the more people we speak to the more they say wait for the better months so that we can enjoy the journey a little more :)

At this stage are tossing up between settling in a cairns for a while or journey down to Brisbane area but will decide that in the next month or so.
It will give us a chance to get really comfortable with the vessel before the big trip also.

My father has purchased cruising the coral coast as requested and is very impressed. Thanks for the suggestion multihull1.

I will keep intouch though as I explore the internet/software side of things and have a good detailed look at the trip.

There is a saying in FNQ that when heading south by yacht it is not the yachts that fail but the willpower of the sailor to persevere against the prevailing trades. You can do it with time and a good motor but be preparted to stop often, tuck in and hide when the trades kick in or plug on into 25 knot sou easters. April to Nov it blows SE 20 knots pretty much every day. Travel early in the morn, do a short run and find a good anchorage...
Good luck.

Cisco if you reads this mate feel like i know you we seem to have done alot of the identical things.

You're not the same person are you? I've noticed that you're never both in the same room at the same time...

docgav said...

There is a saying in FNQ that when heading south by yacht it is not the yachts that fail but the willpower of the sailor to persevere against the prevailing trades. You can do it with time and a good motor but be preparted to stop often, tuck in and hide when the trades kick in or plug on into 25 knot sou easters. April to Nov it blows SE 20 knots pretty much every day. Travel early in the morn, do a short run and find a good anchorage...
Good luck.

Right on!!!

Hi guys, sorry haven't been on for a while.

Will be leaving mid-late june now, pretty much set on that.
Have decided to do it now and not wait and are really looking forward to it.

We would be hoping to be back in hobart well before october, but if you are still interested louisa email me on the site and I will discuss it with the skipper when I get there.
We would certainly like an extra set of hands for the later half and were going to consider it further when we were closer to that stage of the trip.

Will keep you informed guys, I am setting up a site in the next couple of week where I will post a daily log (hopefully) on the trip and will post the link here when I have for anybody interested.

Thanks for everybodies advice it has been a great help!!

Multihull 1- Did you buy the boat on your profile from the Central coast NSW? i think i recognise it.

sorry hangtime didnt know which avatar i had up.
I had a crowther spindrift 40 in Calif. before moving here some 20 years ago.
then got some robin chamberlain hulls built a bridgedeck and had a great 39 foot performance cruiser capital on the performance so much that the wife didnt like it divorce came lost boat, house,kids...... you know the story

thanx Hang time I lost my yacht in the divorce partners with friend in this one better than nothing though loved your comment though about the boat still loving me no matter how many girls i slept withGood on Ya
Ps Was faithful the whole marriage never steered off course even though some squalls came thru
Robert