Fuel Filter Duplication Project

By the time all the Christmas mayhem was behind us The Bloke was twitching for the arrival of a package containing his duel filter kit. Despite being at the end of any Australian transport routes, it arrived in Hobart promptly. 

The package arrived with filters, taps and hose clips.

A bit of shopping for screws, bolts and hoses and The Bloke was good to go.

It pays to chat about proposed boat projects because it turned out that Chris from Bilbungara had embarked on the very same one. In fact, he was somewhat further progressed. While we were at it,  why not move the entire assembly to the engine bay so the filters could be more easily accessed for checking and servicing, was his suggestion? The existing set-up had the filter beneath our bunk. To get to it all, the bedding needed to be removed and the bunk disassembled and even then it was in a fiddly spot to work on. Accessing fuel filters is hardly something you want to be attempting in a heaving sea and bad enough at routine services when tied up against something hard and stabilizing. This presented a good opportunity to improve access. 

The Bloke scavenged some marine ply from the hard-stand work area bins, cut out a mounting board with slots to accommodate the tap levers then painted it silver. Painting was intended not just to look good but to prevent it absorbing any diesel spills which would smell awful. The engine bay is separated from our cabin only by a panel.

Filters attached to the mounting board

Reverse side of the mounting board where the lever operated taps are fitted

Mounting in profile. 

Long bolts in hose cutt-offs acting as spacers to hold the mounting off the engine bay wall.
  

Of course it took a little longer than planned but there is really no such thing as quick job on a yacht. The process was estimated to take a couple of days. A week later and after the typical time blow-out obtaining extra parts and fittings it was all in place and ready for testing.

  

  

 Side profile (L) and Top view (R)of assembly within the engine bay.

Close-up of slot to operate the tap-levers.

The engineering for this job was as complicated as The Bloke had ever experienced because the entire arrangement had to fit into a particular and tight space. The tolerances were within 5 -10 mm.  The assembly had to miss an engine mount plus the panel enclosing the engine bay still need to close. Once installed it all came together, which only goes to prove luck will win out over talent every time. 

POST SCRIPT : The accelerator cable needed to be restrained with a cable tie to avoid vibration chafe. The most recent engine service proved the efficacy of the relocated filters. Winning.

Bryans Corner to Triabunna - Just Ahead of Christmas

The bunch sprint that constituted the fleet of boats that left Eden for Bryan's Corner /Passage Beach, were assembled for a couple of days getting over the 52hours passage. There is as much nervous energy as physical energy involved. Nobody claims the jump from Eden to Tasmania as one of their favourite crossings. Most of the boats moved on within 2 days. We instead, decided to linger an extra night and relocated from Passage Beach to Byan's Corner. It holds fond memories for us and visually we enjoy it too.

View looking back to the gap that is Schouten Passage.

  

Low cloud/fog drifting down the hills created an interesting atmosphere.

Rather than make an immediate run for Hobart, we chose to call into Triabunna, a town we'd not previously visited. David Read, who we'd met in 2014/15 is now a resident there so we thought - "Why not call in?". David is now the Vice-Commodore of the Spring Bay Boat Club and was able to squeeze us in on one of the club jetties. The public marina, was otherwise 'chockers' and unable to accommodate us. How lucky to be in-the-know.

Zofia perched on the end of the dock

Gail and George from Southern Belle made the Bass Strait crossing a few days ahead of us and were ensconced in the marina and had watched our progress across 'the ditch' with baited breath. While the other boats scattered to Maria Island or taking the Easterly route around the Tasman Peninsula to later rendezvous in Hobart, we took a breather and sheltered from a 'significant blow' in the cute township of Triabunna.

Recommendations to visit the pub could not be followed through due to renovations

Gail and George (Southern Belle), made great companions as usual.

The Fish Van is something of a legend and The bloke needs little encouragement.

  

David took us for a drive to a nearby high-point where we could capture the view across Spring Bay and Mercury Passage. 

Being unable to make the hop to Hobart by 18th of December meant were not going to be in Hobart to great Lucas, Amy and the grandchildren on their arrival. We were however accessible from the land and we were only 40 minutes from their planned Day-1 touring destination. A detour to the Fish Van was hardly a problem. We'd definitely make it to Hobart to host them onboard and spend Christmas together.

The Diesel Must Flow

For eleven years we have never had a fuel problem. It appears all good thing must come to an end. Two and a half days of shake, rattle and roll across Bass Strait will stir up accumulated "crud" in the fuel tank. The water separating filter tried it best to cope but it finally gave up. Unable to pass fuel, the engine was soon starved of that vital liquid, spluttered and stopped. At least it was daylight albeit blowing 30 knots in 3m breaking seas just off  Wineglass Bay. Not to worry, we are a yacht after all. So we deployed more sail, hand steered because the auto-pilot could not cope and then sailed through a narrow passage onto anchor.

Magnificent and rugged rock walls near Schouten Passage with signature

Tassie orange algal highlights.

 

It sounds so straightforward, however, as soon as we turned into the opening in the cliffs that forms Schouten Passage, the wind was blocked. The sails hung a little limp. Gulp. Fortunately, both the swell and the tide was in our favour and with the help of an occasional slight puff of wind, we were eventually sucked through the pass by the tide at barely 2 knots, providing plenty of time to examine the rock faces which were unnervingly close. There is never a dull moment.

100% focus. The end of 52 hour passage soooo close!

Now to sail onto anchor; something we'd never done before. We pulled out our small inner headie to make the anchor locker accessible and free of flapping sails and everything simpler to handle. The inner headie requires only 30 or so turns on the winch to furl it up, versus 76 for the big headie, meaning it's far more manageable. Fellow cruisers who'd already anchored ahead of us couldn't work out what we doing. Having sailed through Schouten Passage, why were we now sailing up and down the beach. Showing off perhaps. A victory lap? A further problem had emerged. The anchor winch requires the motor to be running. We faced the prospect of manually deploying the anchor and despite the anchor winch having been serviced only 10 weeks before, it was jammed. We wanted this passage to come to an end, be still, have an 'anchor dram' or two and go to sleep. No more challenges PLEASE!

The rocks were quite close. A bag of jelly snakes on hand to help with the stress and excitement.

Tacking away from the beach, The Bloke had the F@#k Box on stand-by while he searched the Mechanical Toolbox for the rubber mallet with the hope of 'persuading' the gypsy to release. No joy. What to do? Perhaps we could try just engaging the starter motor battery by turning the ignition key to the 'on' position to open the electric circuit to the hand-held winch controller? Right now we needed to cash in on some extra luck. Joy of joys, it turns out that the anchor winch will operate without the motor actually running. Blessed be Jeanneau!  The anchor winch drags a huge current which is why it's on the same circuit as the motor. No doubt the batteries would otherwise be spent in a heartbeat. It makes sense for the anchor winch to operate at the same time as the motor which is creating current.  We were dropping rather than attempting to retrieve the anchor; gravity and momentum from the combined weight of the anchor and chain would do the work so long as the circuits were open. This was a happy discovery. Phew!

No time to waste. 

Now to fix the problems. Anchor drams were on hold. At least we were not bouncing about in the ocean and were finally still. Sorting out the jammed gypsy on the anchor winch was fairly easy. Plenty of WD-40 and The Bloke's enthusiastic banging with the rubber mallet did the trick. Now for the bigger task - dismantling our bunk to access the primary fuel filter; replacing it and testing if the motor would run. With luck, this would be the source of the problem and not something more sinister.

Blocked and cruddy filter. Job done saving the engine.

Despite having just completed a 52 hour journey The Bloke got on with the task immediately. The replacement was successful, the motor started up straight away, meaning that the problem was identified and rectified. Then came the inevitable debriefing and discussion on what we could have done to prevent this unfortunate occurrence.

The anchor dram was the sweetest of any we can recall. By now it was 13th December although not a Friday. Perhaps this is why there was a happy ending.

Investigations and discussions with other cruisers soon revealed that a duel filter system is used by many cruising yachts. All you need do is duplicate the water separation filter, connect the two filters with valves to enable them to be isolated and replace the input and output fuel lines. What could go wrong? Well a lot really but it had to be done. The Bloke ordered parts on-line from our anchorage so that the project to be commenced as soon after our arrival in Hobart as possible. Christmas would create a non-negotiable delay but at least all the parts would be to hand. We were resolved - this is never to happen again. The diesel must flow!

Jervis Bay Stopover

Another of those second-time-lucky trips. Weather forecasting was triple checked after our last effort: Three PredictWind models, Windty, the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) all concurred there would be light winds early that would increase to a nice NE breeze by mid-morning. Good-oh.

We departed the Cronulla Marina after lunch, waiving goodbye to our friends on Onora who had the inconvenience of a refrigeration issue. Being a significantly larger vessel, they’d catch us up as soon as they could further down the track. Just to reinstate equilibrium, we only motored up to the end of Gunnamatta Bay and took up our station on the courtesy mooring again. We quite like the chance to clear off from a busy jetty-visit and sit quietly somewhere overnight to 'set our heads' for the next trip. 

Evening settling in at over Gunnamatta Bay

Once off again in the morning, we committed to motor-sailing which lasted for 5 hours until the wind arrived. It was a little longer than we'd expected from the predictions but by now we we'd consigned the forecasters to the 'lying-bastards.com' bin anyway. A head-start was needed to get to our destination before dark. What a contrast to our last aborted trip! By the time we were abeam of Port Kembla/Woollongong, the wind although light, was filling the sails enough to sail. Engine off. Hooray. We enjoyed the afternoon's sailing until the arrival of the second swell which occasionally had the boat almost stopping. Since neither wind nor swell was coming from the South we were at least able to take a shortcut just north of Point Perpendicular and pass through the Sir John banks which would otherwise cause breaking seas and a detour to seaward. Not withstanding, the Bloke needed to hand steer to hold a course.

 Point Perpendicular, the imposing northern headland at the entrance to Jervis Bay.

Having visited Jervis Bay on our way north 3 1/2 years ago, we had a mental image of how it looked and where to find the public moorings at The Hole In The Wall anchorage. You can anchor there but it's in a National Park and anchoring inside of 10m of water depth is prohibited in order to preserve the sea grass. Since the weather was once again predicted to get wild, being well tucked in was preferable. Fortunately, the National Park courtesy moorings had recently been serviced. Even though it's an anchorage for Southerly or Easterly winds, predicted northerlies would last only 1/2 a day and to get the appropriate shelter would require sailing 6nm across to the other side of the bay. We couldn't be bothered with the to-ing and fro-ing. We decided we could hang on the mooring even if it would be a lee shore and a little uncomfortable.

Sea grass below the boat looking like a shag pile carpet

As so often happens, the wind died off completely overnight, allowing 20/20 vision through the water. By morning Hurtle Turtle (another cruising catamaran we know) had arrived after an overnighter from Sydney and ahead of the change. Their destination was also Hobart and meant we'd have company later during our southward passage as well as when the barometer dipped announcing the arrival of yet more strong wind, albeit for just half a day. 

Hurtle Turtle riding it out along side.

At 995hPa, strong wind is never far away.

 

An artist's impression of the Hole In The Wall anchorage in the early 1800's. 

The headland in now somewhat collapsed leaving a 'U' shape gap. The Bay is also considerably wider

As Good As It Gets

Weather forecast once again bad:Actually terrible. Not just thunderstorms. Been there, done that in Queensland. Not just rain: 100m - 200m predicted. We’ve had that before too and let’s face it we are equipped for ‘wet’. We are sailors after all. The wind though is something we do try to evade. With 40kts predicted we needed to plan carefully. Where to hide?

Calm before the storm

The dawn sky, with just an overnight sprinkling of rain was,  likely the nicest view we might get for the day. The sun, once up, was not really penetrating the thick clouds. It was gloomy and the rain getting heavier and the wind, while initially comparatively light at 25kts, was forecast to reach 41kts.

Everything is relative. We’ve become accustomed to 30kts. In fact we sat in 30-40kts on anchor just last week. A westerly or northerly, or anything in between, is fine in Gunamatta Bay. It’s a long narrow inlet and a fetch not really an issue. Wind from the south impacts quite differently - a funneling gutter with the opportunity for fetch to build all the way from Bundeena. Our prospects of a happy life on anchor, or even the newly discovered courtesy mooring looked bleak.

But we did get lucky! The Cronulla Marina had 2 vacancies that came up. One for Onora and one for us. We stayed at the Cronulla Marina 3 years ago and they were kind enough to allow us to tie up our dinghy there during the preceding week. This made coming ashore for The Bloke’s #6 rated Sausage Rolls, shopping etc... all the easier. Little did we know our ‘thank you’ box of cake slice would be good karama for finding a marina berth!

  

Sharing is caring. 

Taking Jim and Jeannie to sample more 'quality' sausage rolls last week.

Photos, courtesy of J. Foley

I noticed some water spray inside the salon before heading out in the rain to catch up with The Bloke for coffee at the very cultish “Grind” coffee shop. On return,  the spray had become a trickle and running towards the electrical panel! Yikes.

For now, we had bluetac, gaffer tape and disposable nappies keeping an internal flood at bay. Tomorrow we hope for finer weather (even if windy) so that the Sikkaflex Gun can come out for a more robust solution. While we waited for the tempest to deliver, we decided to watch a movie or three. ‘As Good as it Gets’ caught our eye on the menu. It was a good fit. A feel-good film and we didn’t recall it as having much rain in it!

   

Real time rain radar (l) and the wind predictions (r). The 'baby-poo' yellow always gets our attention and as for the orange and red, well you can guess?

Cronulla Marina (02) 9544 0888
Family owned and run. Well maintained floating jetties. Super friendly. All vessels well supervised. Fuel dock and pump-out. Inexpensive by Sydney standards. Only deficit is the amenities block which they are waiting for approval to rebuild. Shopping and public transport (easy airport access) immediately to hand.

Retracing the Sausage Roll Trail

The Bloke's quest for the best sausage rolls rarely takes a back seat and could even be a driver for our retracing of steps southward. Many have been purchased, examined, tasted and some immediately binned. Queensland has not been a bountiful ground for these tasty morsels, hence the need to take the tropical shirts on a tour and hunt them down.

Peter from SV Novae did all he could to placate The Bloke by creating this batch of noteworthy Amateur Division sausage rolls and serving them up at Great Keppel Island but this just fueled the desire.

To Pittwater we must go! Would the highly ranked rolls from the Cottage Point Kiosk and Boat Hire be just as good as they were in his memory? Trent was up for the test. He'd been warned by Bruce the Vice Commodore of the Kuring-Gai Motor Yacht Club whom we'd just met at Soldiers Point Marina, that The Bloke was on his way.

 Barrenjoey headland with it's lighthouse welcoming us back to The Pittwater

The Bloke with Trent, creator of highly ranked Pork and Fennel sausage roll delights

 

Pittwater is in any case a jewel and The Bloke was fixated with a return to our favourite bay, Castle Lagoon. Apart from being beautiful and sheltered too, it's only a short dinghy ride away from Cottage Point, coffee, Sausage Rolls and a somewhat acclaimed Fish Curry.

 

Onora anchored up and with stern secured to a rock.

A masterclass from dual world circumnavigators.

 

The Bloke got several others involved in his enthusiasm too. Jim and Jeannie from Onora, recently returned to their vessel from a summer in their home of Chicago hastened their arrival from Newcastle to participate. Bob and Pam from MV Karajas who we'd met in these waters 3 years earlier were keen to join in too.

 

Jim and Jeannie would never have guessed their 49th Wedding Anniversary meal would have included a Sausage Roll!

Lunch at the Gong

We wanted to progress our southward journey towards Tasmania and having spent a few days in Cronulla we’d arranged to rendezvous with Onora at Jervis Bay. A westerly was predicted and according to Predictwind nothing more than 20kts. An offshore breeze would make for flat conditions. We seldom get to sail on a westerly. Prospects were OK. So off we went. Onora departed at a similar time but from Sydney Harbour. A 20 foot advantage over our hull length would have us converge at some point during the passage.

Initially we were motor sailing, then just motoring. Next going along nicely with full rig but it wasn’t too long before we sailing on jib alone. Radio messages between ourselves and Onora exchanged news of inconsistent conditions. By lunch time we were looking very seriously at our options. Jervis Bay was not going to be our day’s destination. That much was certain. Wooolongong was not far away, perhaps we could stop by and assess, or even stay, but it would be for several days by the look of the upcoming weather predictions. How would this pan out?

The public mooring in the tiny harbour, already full with a couple of dozen boats on moorings was clearly visible from the sea. It was enourmous and unused. We picked up the mooring just long enough to determine that we'd be on the tiles once the westerly died off, even at high tide. Furthermore, we'd be helpless in stronger winds predicted from other quadrants. We made and ate some lunch at The Gong (as it's known by the locals) and resolved to return to Cronulla on the same westerly we'd sailed in with. This was no place for us!

 

This harbour s not home to many boats at all. 

Anchoring is out of the question. 

 

Remnants of an historic wharf

Goodbye Wooloongong!

Crazy sea state near the sea bridge along the Illawarra coastline

 

The wind was hooting for our entire trip back with gusts in excess of 40kts across our decks. The surface of the water just lifted off onto the air. The boat was getting caked with instant-dry sea salt. Bullets are a well known phenomenon coming off the Barrington Tops, we were later told. It was just too dangerous to attempt to sail when wind would accelerate from 10 to 47kts in a heartbeat so we worked the iron jib (motor) hard and returned 6 hours later. The westerlies were so strong and prolonged that topsoil from central New South Wales, after years of drought, was blown across the Tasman Sea as far New Zealand. Were we surprised? Not in the least!

Turning directly into the wind as we entered Port Hacking we achieved barely 2knots speed over ground. Onora was forced to anchor west of Jibbon Beach waiting for sufficient tide to enter Gunamatta Bay with its deeper draft. The public mooring we'd enjoyed in Gunamatta Bay was unsurprisingly occupied by the time we returned so we anchored further north from this starting position - a nett loss for the day of 150m northward - Tasmania might as well be the moon!