Shout out to Sean (Seanslife) former owner of “Whispering Wind”

[Ozzie]

Hi Sean, if you are still viewing the forum I have sent you a new PM
Ozzie

[Andrew]

Giday Ozzie, (and Sean), I've found Sean's boating blogspot site last "Whispering Wind" (I563) post was in 2019 when he sold her (with some cruising boat schemes for future),

https://seansboating.blogspot.com/2019/ ... ve-on.html

(There is a link to his "Tammie Norrie" that he built in the UK as well. last post in 2012.)

https://seansboatbuild.blogspot.com/?view=magazine

Cheers

[Ozzie]

Thanks Andrew. Interesting the link to his blog in his signature doesn’t seem to work but your longer url works fine . Read his blog and it’s interesting . Totally agree with his idea on retirement I’ve never met anyone who retired and said to me “wish I’d kept working “ but other than financial reasons I’m sure there are. My wife retired early as I was retired. Our financial advice was after 5 years you won’t notice the difference and they were right. You can’t buy back a second of your life . Anyway thanks for link.

[Sevenducks]

Ozzie, Andrew and Sean, FYI, Whispering Wind Investigator #144 is currently undergoing a full refit, re-rig, and refurb at Milton 2538.
Such great little boats. I am enjoying the process.

Cheers

Tony Marshall.

[Andrew]

Gidday Tony, great to hear that your refurb of Whispering wind is going well.

My only visit there, Wairo beach sand dunes in 1960's on a familtly EH Holden road trip, amazing coastlines and country.

Recently repairing the deck core on 49yo Teria, she will be solid, epoxy injection method.

Good luck with the resto,

[Ozzie]

Great to hear Tony. It’s always great to see these amazing vessels being refurbished and given a new life rather than relegated to landfills like so much of our disposable society these days. I was trying to contact Sean to see if he had any fruit looking for a new investigator. He’s owned two before and sold them due to os posting but is looking for a third one now. Testament to the boat I guess. Please post some pics of your renovation. Always inspiring.

[seanslife]

Hi Tony, Andrew and Ozzie, sorry for missing your posts.... I purchased Whispering Wind in 2015 and sold her via a brokerage in 2017, and then I put a deposit on her in Christmas 2024 when I just noticed her on FB Marketplace, but quickly realised I do not have time or space for an i563 at the moment and so I forfeited my deposit and am glad she found a good home.

I wish Tony all the best with Whispering Wind, the boat is great design (I'll be getting another when I can) and some of the individual virtues I enjoyed about her was the tilting tiller, the little home made galley in the cabin, how dry she was, and the strong single axle trailer (all features I would look for again in future). The major task I completed in my short ownership was to drop the centre plate for sandblasting and re-gal, then refitted to get rid of slop in the fittings I posted about this with pictures on this site at the time). I did notice some water getting into the keel-box but was never able to identify the source before I sold her. I priced up sails and would have purchased from Rolly Tasker if I'd kept Whispering Wind. The outboard (Yamaha 4stroke 6hp?) was a very sweet engine, nice and quiet and fuel efficient, but a bit too heavy for my feeble back so I added a cheap Chinese 2-stroke long-leg 2.5hp to her for lake sailing - much easier to lift.

I sailed Whispering Wind on Lake Burley Griffin (she was parked mast-up at Canberra Yacht Club), and took her on road trips to Broken Bay, Newcastle Harbour, Lake Macquarie, and to Batemans Bay a number of times.

Hope all goes well with the rebuild and cleanup Tony! I'll be watching with interest.

Cheers
Sean

[Andrew]

Thanks for your update Sean, and hope that one day you can get another Investigator. They are definitely very safe and fairly comfortable for 18 footers. Had a look at your Tammie Norrie build blog, that plank-up looks like advanced wood epoxy boatbuilding and an intersesting saga moving her around as she was being built too. Cruising dinghy's like that are rare gems in Australia and are a nice weight and size to manage.

I've owned a few wooden dinghy's ages ago, and fixed them up a bit (but never built one), it's a very workable material. Might get a small wooden day-sailer in future (and keep Investigator for multi-day trips. Cheers