Do what you can while you can

Only a few weeks into 2018 and an old uninvited 'friend' turned up unexpectedly, who I hadn't seen for almost 7 years, and was hoping I never would.

Thankfully their stay was relatively short and, while a little painful in the short term, they made me think of my longterm goals and needs.

They made me realize that I have spent more time planning the things I wanted to do and far less time actually doing them. I'm crashing through my forties now, and my twenty-year-old self would be horrified to see what little I have accomplished of my lifelong dreams and plans.

Simple power for a simple boat

I have spent some time looking over the fantastic site No Frills Sailing and it has inspired me to put together a few more articles for this site and ultimately revisit the design of my own web site. So I'm picking up on Lars topic about power on a boat and what is and is not needed on board.

My little yacht has very little need for power as I've equipped her with LED lighting which are mainly internally powered but I have still pieced together a small battery set up the allows me to charge the obligatory phone and laptop at a push. However its main function is to provide power to the bilge pump, lighting for the compass and the anchor light when needed. So what have I done with the everything else you would normally worry about?

Books aboard...

It's essential to have a book aboard so you can while away the hours waiting for the high tide or the pub to open. It's also important to have the right reference book to hand when handling those important details such as selecting the right anchorage technique, or the right medical process to stitching your thumb back on. So putting the Almanac and ships log to one side what do you have on board?

Focus on the new year - Pico

Winter creeps on in the UK but here in New Zealand we start the summer and so thoughts turn to the great outdoors and what could be, rather than what should have been.

So with a renewed vigour I am going to be pushing for the Pico option this year. This is based around limited funds (whole project to be completed for less than  NZ$2000 - $1000 Boat and $1000 refit and kit buying) and simply scaling back to weekend and evening cruising in a Dinghy, something Mirror-esk would be great.

This means that putting the Dinghy to one side I need to look at simpler ways of sailing and what I would be doing for an overnight as well as accommodating our 6 year old, should he want to venture out with his old dad!

New Zealand, city of sails. Hauraki Gulf.

We are fast coming up to a year here in New Zealand and sadly, still no sign of a boat. More to the point, still no spare cash to buy a boat! So this has left me looking for very large projects (complete rebuilds) or give aways, which are very few and far between.

While I trudge onwards with my slow search, I take solice in crossing the harbour bridge every morning and being able I admire other people yachts in the city centres marina. Online scouting for New Zealand cruising books proved to be difficult. But now here the odd gem (books are insanely expensive here) does turn up in the clearance store. Cue William Owen's Hauraki Gulf guide for $15 

The Hauraki Gulf is, broadly speaking, the expanse water that stretches between the East coast of the North Island up to Cape Rodney and the mirrored west coast of the Coromandel up to the top of the Great Barrier.
Calling home the North Shore, and working in the city, this would be my cruising ground and ny the looks of things I don't think I would need to look outside of here for a good few years to fulfil my simple sailing needs.

The book gives a great guide to the region for both fishing and cruising, as well as some great insites from the authors 50 years experience in the area.

Complete with anchorage suggestions and simple outlines of the areas, this book will be a firm favourite on the bus to work as well as, hopefully, in my future "micro sailers" library.

Anyone wanting to get a copy here's the ISBN. 978-1-86953-750-0

Apologies for spellings and brevity as this post has been sent from my mobile

Less is more?

Lets be frank, money is becoming ever thinner on the ground and with 2 young children I don't see the finances coming through any time soon, unless our number some up on a scratch card or Saturday night!?

To this end I have come up with a further reduction in the finances and have born out 2 further sub categories to my sailing options.

Nano (nano – n – billionth) and Pico (pico – p – trillionth) budgets have been established to allow to to have a possibility of actually making it out on the water. 

Nano sailing has made me look to the older smaller pocket cruisers such as the Hunter 18 and the very attractive Leisure 17. I have seen these boats for as little as £500 and as they have a much more trimmed down and basic set up the overhaul of such a boat should be vastly reduced.

Pico sailing is set to take it all back to basics and look at sailing lakes and coastal waters in the likes of a Mirror Dinghy or GP14. This option makes simple weekend camping trips very possible with less than £1000 to spend.

I am very excited that these 2 options have been established and I am especially keen to look into the Pico option for New Zealand whether we are there for 2 months or 2 years. 

Hunter 19, I wish!!

Hunter 19

Looks like the Hunter 19 is trying to push itself into my mind this week. After seeing a link on Dylan Winters Site (KTL) to a YouTube video of a Shetland - Norway trip, I was inspired by the owners Hunter 19 and how effective she was and also how well maintained!

The genius that I liked was the way the boat had been kitted out with affordable items but offered fantastic functionality. A small wooden plinth has been cut to size to sit in the companion way and then crafted to take a GPS, Plastimo 100 and a Garmin fish finder. The hand held VHF completes the set at the end.

GPS / Compass / Depth / VHF - £350 all in. Genius!

This if definitely on the plans for my boat now!

Blow me down if theirs not a Hunter 19 for sale in NZ on the TradeMe site inviting offers of around NZ$2500, that's about £1250!

If only we were there already I'd have snapped it up!!

Items pre New Zealand

With the move to New Zealand now looming large I've been looking over what is best bought here and taken with me and what I can get out in the Antipodes.

As I already have a number of items it comes down to the usual suspects...

A Hand Held VHF Radio, such as the cheap and cheerful 3 Watt HH125 and perhaps a bulk head compass such as the Mini Contest. But when you start to look into the price of technology via on-line stores you find there's very little difference in price between the 2 countries once you take the exchange rate into account, although Compasses are a little more expensive then here.

So sadly as much as I love to buy kit, I'll wait till we get there.

Updated WebSite

I've managed to get round to updating the look of the web site and slim it down a little.

Updated WebSite Look

Funds are building and we're now waiting on confirmation of a job offer in New Zealand which will have a massive impact on this project.

I just can't to get this project off the ground now, either here or in New Zealand!