Well, the plane was on time and GT got me to the airport and Michael picked me up at the other end on Saturday last. We both then drove to Southport to check the boat out and get to know our new charge.
The boat is tied up at the Resort Marina just down from the Southport yacht club and the keys were just where the owner said in the anchor locker. We were confronted with the first problem, getting onboard. Classic is very high sided and even for me it was a reach up to grasp the gunwale. It presents it's own challenges, like how to dock the boat without getting off as it's a big jump from the deck to the dock...
Classic is by any standard a big boat, below deck accommodation is spacious and all the workings are below the accommodation deck and in all one can stand up in this space and walk the length of the boat or at least between the forward and aft crash bulkheads.
Saturday we did little other than explore the location of the various bits and pieces and systems on board. Before I knew it was dark outside and we had to depart for Manly and Drina. I was quite looking forward to a night on the old girl and checking out the various improvements he's made in preparation for the upcoming trip to Patagonia.
It's about an hour and a half drive from Southport to Manly and so it was dinner time on arrival and so we stopped off at the Manly Pub for something to eat. A very expensive choice as it turned out for a mediocre meal sloppily served. Not having any idea of the alternatives I'd more or less decided to give the pub a miss. Now of course I know better and the the pub is a shining jewel in the crown of Manly's culinary options. Yesterday I made the mistake of ordering a long black in one of the alternative cafes and I'm still regretting the waste of the $3.50 and wondering how my insides are coping with the slug of battery acid I had before my alarm systems kicked in and I spat out the remainder. So no coffee for a while.
Sunday we got all the user manuals out and began sorting through them for the relevant operating instructions and making a list of things to read and bone up on. The nav systems are all more or less mainstream components so shouldn't be a problem on a stand alone basis, they are connected together in a rather haphazard way it seems, probably installed over a period of time rather than as a single installation.
Monday I went over the ships systems with the old owner and his skipper and sorted out most of the grey areas that I had on my list. Malcolm would love this boat, there are rows and rows of buttons and switches to play with..
Later in the morning we fuelled up and then back on our own dock began watering, a process that took several hours...
In the afternoon I got the plotter loaded with a course to Hobart, this turned out to be a tedious process. Being used to doing this with a few mouse clicks on my laptop I'd forgotten how frustrating these plotters without a proper keypad and high resolution screen to play with. So this process took much longer than I had allowed and as I write it's not complete, I've skipped all of the Tasman coast as I think I'll just rely on my laptop and handheld when we get that far.
Right now we're just sitting around waiting for the weather to change and watching that big high creep eastwards towards us. The most frustrating part of the weather at the moment is that the wind up here is in the north west and only 15kts, while just down the coast at Point Danger it's blowing 30kts from the south west...
More later.
