Storms in NSW

[Yara50]

Wind gusts over 100km/hr in NSW. It is on days like this I am happy my boat is sitting on its trailer at home. Ozzie, hope you had your mooring checked recently.

[Ozzie]

Yes Ian ,my mooring is serviced annually and I give my contractor carte blanche on anything that looks remotely sus . I also have a tough plastic anti chafe sleeve fitted. I went down this morning at 7 am to check just in case one of the floating gin palaces that surround me had decided to go moonwalking across the bay but all seemed ok . The lake was like a milkshake . I noted the tv film of the Manly ferry going through swells higher than the bridge deck before they ceased operation . Oh what fun . Glad I got my cruise over last month.

Spritz bouncing on mooring

Yard looks like hades on a public holiday.

[atles]

good to see the investigator is hold up with the best of them

[Tah]

Ozzie , do you have the original mooring bollard or have you upgraded it because you moor all the time. Mine seems a little on the light side?

Tah

[Ozzie]

No Tah. I replaced the bollard when i first moored the boat. the original was a little light and had some alloy corrosion around the base. i replaced it with the next size up from BIAS and put a thick marine ply backing plate underneath the deck. i also use a HD fairlead to route the mooring line over the front of the boat. The anti chafe sleeve makes it a bit of a chore to undo but it stops kids from playing silly buggers with it. will get a pic .

[Phil]

I arrived in Sydney last Tuesday morning around 2 am by car on the way to Swansea Heads to pick up Satch"s 563. What a nightmare the weather was. Well we did the business.I got some new bearings and tyres organised and was out of there by 8am yesterday 24 th. Arrived in Melbourne At midnight after 16 hours at the wheel with catnaps every 4 hrs. Looks a great little boat....and after a bit of a tidy up and a couple of thousand of dollars of non essentials at Whitworths I hope for a winter of getting sorted and a coming summer of enjoying this great little vessel. All I gotta do now is learn how to get it into the water without bending it or me.

[Ozzie]

Looking forward to lots of pics Phil.

[Phil]

Will do. As soon as I work out how to actually upload them. My plan is to sift through all the previous posts, get to work on the basics over winter like leaky windows, mouldy interior, how to rig and how to launch ( Do I submerge the trailer and risk rusting it out OR do I back it in to the wheel rims and risk tilting it onto the concrete ramp and damaging the Skeg. ) and once those are sorted set about fine tuning the other stuff. Thank goodness a bloke needs a hobby !!! By the way if anyone is interested the sail No. Is 004. Is there much difference in Specs between an early one like this and the later ones?

[Ozzie]

Phil , my modus on interior is strip her out , pressure wash , one coat of oil based undercoat on the unfinished glass areas and then top coat of a good exterior gloss like dulux X10 (now called "Weathershield" again I think) in whatever colour you like . I use white as its nice and reflective at night. The undercoat pongs so ventilate well during use but once covered by the acrylic won't gas you afterwards.

There is lots of advice on lauching here , with a tilt trailer you don't have to wet your bearings and I don't. When retrieving I usually dip the trailer . I'm only using the trailer once a year as I'm moored But I always make a point of hosing everything down immediately it's been dipped. I think dipping a trailer and then leaving for the day while you go sailing probably allows the salt to set in places that make it hard to rinse out afterwards. My trailer is now 30 plus years old and is just starting to develope low level rust.

004 will be a mk1 and from various posts we have worked out the minor differences are it has a single hinged front hatch and a small drainage groove in the deck near the hatch . Also the window shapes are larger although Ian B thinks that it's possible the actual openings are the same and it's just the outer perpex that is different , we are still comparing notes on that one . Also some early 563 s had an outboard well in the port side cockpit locker but that was not standard or at least not usual .

Gents did I miss anything ?

[Phil]

Thanks Ozzie, mine has a straight axle not the " dropped" one and I was a bit worried about tilting in straight onto the concrete. I looked to me that the trailer might have to be deeper in to float her. Thanks for your advice.