Surfing at 13 knots

Left port hacking after dragging the anchor at around 9.30 pm. Managed to pick up a private mooring but with no load rating on the bouy I slept on the sofa with the anchor watch set to 85 metres. Left around 7.15 am tuesday with a strong wind warning from the NE headed for botanny bay, but decided to make use of the NE wind and overnight sail to Eden. No wind until sunset when it picked up and we sailed with 80% headsail overnight. The seas were like a washing machine, but to her credit crew member Nikki went below and knocked up some spag bog. Dave and myself were pretty ordinary, but all good by the morning. We averaged around 8 knots and during one sail change a whale blew about 10 metres from the starboard stern. From then on we had whales everywhere throwing themselves out of the water

The wind picked up in the morning and we started clocking 9 to 11 knots. When it picked up further and we were surfing at 13 knots with the boat humming we reduced sail to about 40% headsail and continued on at 9 to 10 knots. We had to lubricate the rudder bearings on the way as they were stating to sound like a 4 year old learning to play on an amplfied violin. Finnaly made it into Eden with the winds blowing 25 to 30 knots. Tied up at the public wharf and waited for the gale warning from the SE to arrive, which it did about 3.30 am in the morning. Had to continualy shift the fenders to stop the pilings from rubbing on the boat.

Today we did a maintence inspection and found the nuts had fallen off the rudder arm linkage, and were only holdy on by the bolts. Have changed the bolt type on both rudders and used nylock nuts plus locking nut. Also discovered the rudder refference was all loose and after looking at the setup deterined it was incorrect. Skipper not happy as I paid to have the complete new system installed prior to departure from sydney.

Spent thursday making up new mounting hardware and will calibrate on friday. Also installed the cleats on the stern for the tender tie down points. We will probably be in Eden until saturday as it is still blowing from the south most of friday. We will head off  on Saturday and do an overnighter to Lakes Entrance.