Tippy, Not Tipsy

This boat is really tippy. I'm worried someone is going to tip out and fall into the water.

One of the things that gives away instantly that I am not a born sailor is that I don’t like it when our boat gets tippy. The other thing that gives it away is that I call it “tippy” and not “heeled over”. This is just one of many examples of the differences between normal English and the idioms of the sea that sailors speak. I’m going to continue to call it tippy – it just sounds better that way. And a little bit more fun.

So what’s this tippy stuff all about? If you live on land, this might seem a bit alien. Your house certainly doesn’t lean from side to side when the wind blows against it, or at least it shouldn't. But sailboats do. They’re designed to heel over to one side when the wind pushes against the sails. Imagine a Giant Hand coming down from the sky (like something out of Monty Python), pushing against the sail and pushing it into the water. That’s what the wind does. Fortunately, there is ballast in the keel of your boat which provides a counter balance, making it hard for the Giant Hand to push your sail completely down into the water. You want wind to push into your sails as that’s what makes your boat go forward so you kind of have to accept from time to time that the Giant Hand is going to mess you about.

You can minimize the amount that your boat heels by:

• Carefully picking which way you sail relative to the wind;
• Easing the sails; and
• Reducing the amount of sail area.

Points of sail - the big black arrow is the Giant Hand
via Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons license)

Talking about points of sail is how you describe the course your sailboat is taking relative to the wind. In the handy diagram above, you’ll see that there is a “forbidden zone” – Zone A. It is impossible for any boat to sail directly into the wind. It isn’t just forbidden, it is impossible. Trust me on this. Zone B is called “close hauled” – this is when you are sailing close to the wind, about 45°. This is when the Giant Hand is the strongest and your boat gets really tippy. Unfortunately, sometimes where you want to go is where the wind is coming from, so you don’t have any choice but to sail close hauled and beat into the wind.

If you find yourself in Zone B, you can reduce the amount of tippiness by easing the sails. When you are close hauled, you generally keep your sails trimmed in line with the boat as much as possible. When you ease the sails, you let them out to be more perpendicular with the boat. This makes it harder for the Giant Hand to push on the sails. You can also reduce the amount of sail you have by reefing your sails (basically making them shorter) which give the Giant Hand less to push against. These both mean less heeling, but it also means you go slower. It is all about trade-offs.

There are three other zones you can sail in. The first is a “beam reach” which is 90° to the wind. This is what we call “champagne sailing” and can be found in Zone C (C for “champagne”). The boat stays relatively flat and all is right in the world. Zone D stands for “broad reach” and can also be pleasant sailing. Zone E is called “running” and is when you have the wind directly behind you. You’re basically running away from the Giant Hand. This can be a dangerous as you can accidentally jibe your boat. "Jibe" refers to when you turn your boat through the wind. I don’t really get the physics behind it but your boom (the big stick your mainsail is attached to) can swing quickly to the other side. If it hits your head, it could be very painful. Even deadly. So that’s why I say, Zone C is the place for me.

When the boat is quite tippy, I feel a bit tipsy. Especially when I’m trying to move around deck or down below. I cannot tell you how many bruises I got all over my legs last summer from bashing into things or madly trying to catch things before they fell down to the floor (or what sailors call a "sole"). It feels a bit like those times when you’ve had a bit too much to drink and the room starts to spin. I sometimes wonder if I might enjoy the tippy feeling a bit more if I was actually a bit tipsy. Or maybe Scott should put valium in my drinking water.

And on a related note, one fabulous thing about New Zealand – no tipping! (And yes, it is related, tip-sy, tip-py, and tip-ping. They all start with tip.) It does my head in whenever I’m back in the States and have to do mental arithmetic to figure out how much tip to add when I’m out to eat. New Zealand makes it simple. People are paid a liveable wage and don’t expect to be tipped for the service they provide. Of course if you speak with an American accent, a few people might think that you won’t be familiar with the no-tipping Kiwi custom and hope for that little bit extra. But that’s very much the exception. So many reasons to love New Zealand, sailing and no tipping included.

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Hauraki Gulf Cruising Notes: Motokawao Islands

The Motokawao Islands – populated with menacing evil rats with eyes that glow in the dark
36º 41'S, 175º 23'E

There are three uninhabited island groupings on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula. The Motokawao Islands are the northernmost of these, lying between Papa Aroha and Colville, and include:

• Motukahaua Island (also known as Happy Jack’s Elephant Cove)
• Motukaramarama (Bush) Island
• Moturua (Rabbit) Island
• Motuwi (Double) Islands
• Ngamoutukaraka (Three Kings) Islands

Last summer, we sailed out to the area and spent a night anchored up in Elephant Cove, which had been recommended to Scott by some of his racing buddies. They mentioned the stunning scenery in the area. They also mentioned the rats. Scott mentioned the stunning scenery to me. He neglected to mention the rats.

Well to be fair, he did mention them, but not until that night when it was pitch black and creepily quiet. “Do you see all those little red lights along the shore? Those are the eyes of all the rats that live on the island. I hear some of them are good swimmers. Keep an eye out in case any scurry up on to the boat. And whatever you do, don't let them bite you.” Rats on their own don’t bother me – I had two pet rats when I was a child. But those were the good rats, not the evil rats that bite in the middle of the night.

After trying to scare me by pointing out the rats on the shore, I thought of having the type of mutiny that occurs when the skipper "accidentally” falls overboard (see here for 10 easy steps if you want to stage your own mutiny). I decided against it as the winds were up high and threatening to turn south-westerly (which would not have been a good thing in this anchorage). The wind proved to be an excellent distraction from the immediate threat of the evil rats. Our boat kept swinging wildly back and forth on the anchor. I was scared we were going to break loose and slam into the rocky shore. The shore covered with evil rats.  There was also an incident with me getting a fish bone lodged in my throat which distracted me for a good 30 minutes. That was fun too.

Rats are a big problem on many of the Hauraki Gulf islands and there are programs in place to eradicate them. Besides having evil looking glow-in-the-dark red eyes, the rats also impact on native populations of birds and reptiles. These are the kind of rats that we’re happy not to have in our lives.

But don’t let the rats put you off sailing out to this area. It does have stunning scenery and Elephant’s Cove is well known as a great isolated anchorage in which to spend some time. It is probably an ancient volcanic cove which has eroded and flooded over time resulting in steep cliffs on either side of the cove. There is also a small stone beach at the top of the cove if you want to land your dinghy and take your chances with the rats. And ants. There are also supposed to be large ants living on the island. Fortunately, their eyes don’t glow at night.

While you're out there, head over to Motuwi Island, whish is also known as Double Island. This is due to the fact that the long narrow shelf in the center is submerged during high tide resulting in the appearance of two islands. Motukaramarama (Bush) Island has gannet colonies on the cliff tops and interesting rock formations and is well worth a look.

By the way if anyone knows who Happy Jack was, let me know. I'm curious to know why Motukahaua is called "Happy Jack's Elephant Cove". I can't imagine he was happy about the rats.

If you're interested in other posts in the "Hauraki Gulf Cruising Notes" series, check out this page.

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Could You Live Without Your Electric Toothbrush & Hairdryer?

It is starting to dawn on me that when we move on to our sailboat full-time, I’ll need to give up a few things. There are some obvious ones like having a proper bedroom, separate bathroom with a shower and a refrigerator. I’ve known about these all along and think I should be okay doing without. Well, that’s the idea anyway. But I’ve just started to realize that we won’t have an electrical set-up on our boat which will allow me to use my hairdryer and electric toothbrush. They say it is always the little things that hurt the most. You think I would be more worried about a lack of refrigeration, but it is really the electric toothbrush and hairdryer that are keeping me up at night. After all, dental hygiene is important and my hair can get quite frizzy. If I had to pick one, I would go with the electric toothbrush. I have a feeling that my beauty routine is going to take a nose dive anyway living on a boat (especially not having a shower), so I’m not sure my frizzy hair is really going to be the biggest issue.

Most sailboats have two separate electrical systems – an AC system for shore power and a DC battery system when out sailing or anchored up. We don’t have an AC system, so we’re already a step behind most sailboats. So we rely on our DC battery system to power everything on our boat including our chart plotter (essential navigational tool), fish finder (essential to Scott), the pump which connects our water bladder to our sink (you need water to brush your teeth), the interior lights (which we rarely use) and the radio and CD player (sailing is better with music).  And of course the batteries are essential for starting the engine.

All of these things are wired in to the main electrical system and we also have a cigarette lighter adapter gizmo (I’m sure there is a technical term for this) that we can use to charge our mobile phones and iPad, as well as plug in our "anchor light" at night. But what we don’t have on our boat are those ordinary electric sockets like you find in your house. You know the ones where you can plug in your electric toothbrush and hairdryer. And unplug them. And plug in other cool gadgets like blenders and toasters and TVs and computers. Maybe even a DVD player if you want to get really fancy.

If you want to plug in these types of gadgets you need an AC system and a way to power it. There are three ways to go about this – you can hook up to shore power, you can install a generator or you can get an inverter. To hook up to shore power, you basically connect to a giant plug on the dock. Kind of like the ones in your house, except you’re essentially plugging in your entire floating house. If you're not able to plug into shore power, you could get a generator. Generators run off of fuel and produce lots of continuous power and you’ll often see (and hear) them on larger boats with big appliances, air conditioning etc. The downside of generators is that you need fuel to run them (which is expensive), they’re noisy, they need an exhaust system and they take up quite a bit of space. They are also one more thing to worry about breaking on your boat. The final option, inverters, turn DC power into AC power and operate something like a reversed battery charger. This allows you to have AC power without being connected onshore or having a big clunky generator in your boat.

As we’ll be selling our current boat at the end of the New Zealand summer (and buy a bigger one in the States probably with AC power), it doesn’t make sense for us to consider installing an inverter on our boat. It would be expensive and time consuming. Something I can’t really justify just for the sake of my teeth and hair. So I’ll learn to live without, along with no fridge, TV, computer or blender. It’s good to keep learning throughout life, isn’t it?

What electric gizmos and gadgets are a must have on your boat? What have you learned to live without?


Goodbye hairdryer, my hair won't be the same without you.



It was nice knowing you Mr. Toothbrush.

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The Top 10 Most Interesting Boats

Top ten lists are so popular whether it is Prime Minister John Key appearing on the Letterman show to give the top ten reasons to visit New Zealand, the top ten things that make life better aboard your boat, top ten provisioning tips or even the top ten places to cruise. And like an angst ridden teenager in high school desperately wanting to fit in, I figure I need to have my own top ten list too. And here it is...the top ten most interesting boats out there. Well interesting to me at least. You be the judge. Just don't tell me if you don't like my list as I might lock myself in my bedroom crying uncontrollably like an angst ridden teenager. (Mom, I am so sorry I put you through all of that. I blame the fact that my frontal lobe was not fully developed at the time.)

1. The AC45

Rather than go with the obvious America's Cup boat, the AC72, I decided to feature her little sister, the AC45, instead. Little sisters are so often overlooked. The AC45 was the first of two new designs for this year's America's Cup. They are essentially smaller, practice boats so that the crews could get used to sailing on the new wingsailed multihull boats. The boats are powered by a wing that is 20 meters above the deck and they can go really fast and sail in all sorts of conditions. They cost around one million dollars each which makes them a very expensive way to try out a new boat design and technology. Interesting fact - one of the key design criteria for the AC45 was to make sure they could fit into a standard 40 foot shipping container. I'm not sure how you get a 45 foot boat into a 40 foot shipping container but I was never very good in math. (By the way, the outcome of the this year's America's Cup was so heartbreaking.)

2. Serrafyn

No list would be complete without mentioning Larry & Lin Pardey. I picked their 24 1/2 foot wooden boat Serrafyn which they built together in the 1960s and sailed over 47,000 miles around the world, documenting their travels in a number of books. Serrafyn is a Lyle Hess designed sloop which is patterned after an English channel cutter. Tiny and compact, Serrafyn is a solidly built boat that has survived almost anything the sea can throw at you. The Pardeys went on to build a larger cruising boat in Bull Canyon in the 1980s, the 29 foot Taleisin, but their adventures on Serrafyn just go to show you that it is possible to live well and see the world in a small boat.

3.  Kon Tiki

Kon Tiki was the balsa wood raft built by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl which he sailed with five other guys from Peru to the Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago in 1947. It took 101 days over 4,300 miles (8,000 kms) in the open Pacific Ocean to reach the Tuamotu islands. On a raft. With no engine. Made out of balsa wood. You know, the stuff they make model airplanes out of. This, some might argue, is the very definition of insanity. The guys did have knives, a radio, charts and a sextant with them. However, still crazy. And why did Thor do this? To prove, once and for all, that it was possible that people from South American could have settled Polynesia. However, the issue is far from settled and many anthropologists believe it just didn't happen this way. But points to Thor for testing out his theory in a very crazy, crazy way. It is the type of thing that happens routinely on reality TV shows these days but Thor did it first.

4.  The MS Turanor PlanetSolar

The MS Turanor PlanetSolar is the world's largest solar powered boat. And possibly the world's weirdest looking boat if you ask me. It was designed by a Kiwi, Craig Loomes, for a German entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs in Germany must be making good money these days as the boat cost a cool 25 million. I have no idea if that is in NZ dollars or US dollars, but when you're talking about that many dollars it probably doesn't matter. The boat is built out of a lightweight carbon structure and has 512 square meters of photovoltaic cells on it. It has already circumnavigated and now the University of Geneva are currently doing some scientific research on it. It will then be kitted out with six luxury cabins and en-suites. After all, it is important to blend in with all the other super yachts out there. And for all of you "Lord of the Rings" geeks out there, yes that's where the name "Turanor" came from. It means "The Power of the Sun".

5.  Tofi

Tofi was created by designer Hyun-Seok Kim and won first place in the 2011 "Dreamboat" Millennium Yacht Design Award. It is a sleek little minimalistic houseboat / yacht. It has main saloon with a galley, two bedrooms and a separate shower. There is a large deck in the rear and another deck on the roof. And for those days when it is raining, there is a hole in floor so you can fish no matter what the weather. And the best news of all, it is completely transparent so everyone can see how cool you look sitting inside. I'm not actually sure if one has ever been built or if it is just at concept stage right now. Is there a big demand for transparent spaceship-like boats? If you have one, let me know. Curious to know how you keep all that glass clean.

6. The Iguana 29

One of Scott's uncles is completely mystified as to how we will possibly survive living on our sailboat as we won't have a car. The Iguana 29 could be just the answer. It is an amphibious boat, comfortable both in water and on land. It is 8.6 meters long, can carry 8 people and reach speeds of up to 40 knots on the water and around 7 km/hour on land. The good people at Iguana will also sell you a smaller boat, the Iguana 24. Their website cracks me up with it's description, "Your first amphibious craft. You had never really thought about it before, but it is possible. Thanks to the Iguana 24, discover a new freedom, the ability to decide in a moment when and how to launch and recover your boat." They're right. Until I read their website, I never realized that I wanted an amphibious boat. Next time I have a spare $28,000 lying around in change, I'll definitely get one.

7.  HMNZS Te Mana

The Te Mana is one of the Royal New Zealand Navy's ANZAC class frigates. While I can't say that I find naval vessels terribly interesting, I've put the Te Mana on this top ten list as she is about to be deployed to Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean region to take part in international anti-piracy efforts. New Zealand's economy is highly driven by exports and, being an island nation, relies on shipping. Protecting shipping lanes from piracy is pretty important stuff and good on New Zealand for taking part, especially considering what a relatively small country it is (only 4.4 million people). Te Mana has a crew of 177, including 25 officers, and a bunch of weapons including guns, missiles and torpedoes. Plus a helicopter. Sadly, the pirates have pretty much the same stuff.

8. The Rooster Boat

I don't really know what to say about this boat except wow. How cool would that be to have your own giant rooster boat? You can check it out here along with pictures of some other really strange and interesting boats. I would like to make one that looks like a Narwhal. It would have that cool unicorn like horn sticking out of the front to poke all of the other boats out of the way.

9.  The Fennell Residence

The Fennell Residence isn't a very boat-like name, but then it isn't a very boat-like boat. It is on the water, however, so technically it is a house boat. Designed by Robert Harvey Oshatz, this "boat" can be found in Portland, Oregon. I don't think it would make it very far on the open ocean, but it would look cool trying.

10.  Rainbow's End

And of course the most interesting boat of all is Rainbow's End which is our boat and soon to be our permanent home. Rainbow's End is a Raven 26 and a Kiwi classic designed by Owen Woolley. There were about 400 of them built during the 1970s and 1980s and you can find lots of them still sailing around New Zealand. A few have even made it to the Pacific islands. You can find out more about her here.

She might be small, but
she is all ours!

Boat Buying Tips Without Too Much Salt (Pt 7) - How Big Is Too Big?

Be warned - I am an unseasoned and not very salty sailor. Any tips I share about boat buying are of the low sodium variety.

How big is too big for a sailboat? I want a boat that is big enough to hold all of my stuff, but not so big that my bum looks big in it. All the ladies out there can relate. The worst thing in the world is to go jeans shopping. You try on pair after pair after pair desperately looking for the one pair that your bum doesn't look big in. It is all about getting the right cut which suits your shape. I imagine boats are a bit like that too. You want to get the right size for you and your family. Too big and you can't sail it without other crew members and too small and you're horribly uncomfortable and cramped inside. And, as far as I know, there are no sailing Spanx which can solve that problem. (Scott, don't ask what Spanx are. You really don't want to know.)

Well, Scott and I will be buying our next boat sometime next year, so I need to figure out what size will best suit our shape. We could go really big and get a mega yacht. If you have enough money to buy one of those, clearly buying diesel isn't your biggest concern so why not dispense with the sails entirely? The biggest mega yacht out there right now is the Azzam which is owned by some rich dude from one of the Emirates. Clearly, the price of diesel really isn't a problem for him. It is 180m / 590ft long and can reach top speeds of over 30 knots and cost a gazillion dollars. Have you ever seen anything more ridiculous? But I guess if you have this much money you never have to worry about your bum looking big in it because you have a whole host of fawning sycophants* who will tell you how great you look and how tiny your bum is. There aren't any sycophants in our neck of the wood, so we'll be going with something smaller.

So after checking that Scott doesn't have a gazillion dollars stashed away in some secret checking account, I'm now having a look at smaller boats. Although he is from North Dakota and there is a lot of oil to be found there, so who knows maybe the Dakotas will be the new Emirates in the near future and the oil money will come rushing in and we'll buy a mega yacht? However, I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I'm thinking that we want something larger then what we currently sail on (26ft) but less than 40ft. Two reasons why - we're cheap and it is just the two of us. As you go up in size, your maintenance and other boat related costs go up. And obviously, just like with houses, the more square footage you have, the more the purchase price is.

Let me give you an example. We keep our boat in the piles in Westhaven Marina in Auckland. (The piles are the "cost conscious" option for mooring your boat there.) Our boat is small so we can go with the smallest mooring which costs us NZ$201.50 a month. If our boat was between 28-33ft it would cost us NZ$248.00, between 41-46ft it would cost NZ$294.50 and so on and so on all the way up to NZ$465.00 for boats between 61-66ft. The same principle applies when you haul your boat out for its annual anti-fouling. The bigger the boat, the more cans of paint you need. And as anti-foul paint is expensive enough as it is, who really wants to buy a lot of it? Every penny counts when you're sailing on a budget, so I want to go with the smallest boat we can comfortably live in.

The other big reason has to do with ease of sailing. I'm a really rubbish sailor and the last thing we need is to have a really big boat that is hard for me to manage. Ideally, Scott would single hand the boat and I could just spend my days reading and snacking and you really do need a smaller boat for one person to be able to single hand it. (Scott, I am just kidding. I'm there for you. In spirit anyway. In spirit from down below reading and snacking.) From what I've read, it looks like something between 35-38ft would be manageable for the two of us. So that's what we'll go for. One more thing figured out on our boat buying checklist. Next up I'll have a look at the different interior set-ups there are on boats. Since I'll be spending a lot of my time down below snacking and reading, this is an important one!

If you're interested in other slightly eccentric posts on how to buy a sailboat when you know nothing about sailing or boats, check out this page.


Visit The Monkey's Fist to find other posts on this topic:
http://themonkeysfist.blogspot.com/2013/03/does-size-really-matter.html






*Yes, I realize that saying "fawning" in front of "sycophant" is probably unnecessary and a bit redundant. However, "sycophant" on its own is a really silly word which just sounds plain odd. If you add "fawning" in front of it then suddenly it has some oomph.

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Happy Birthday Mom!

It is my mom's birthday this week and one of the great advantages of having a blog is that you can make sure everyone knows you remembered to wish her Happy Birthday! My mom is one fantastic lady and she has been so supportive of our plans to start sailing full-time and live on our boat. Only problem is that she doesn't like the water and worries a bit about hurricanes and our boat rolling over. She would much prefer if we stayed in a marina so that she can visit us from the dock. I'm sure she'll come around in no time and be out there sailing with us in all sorts of weather by the time her next birthday comes around. In the meantime, Happy Birthday Mom!


Once upon a time before computers, e-mails and blogs, there was this thing called a typewriter
that you could use to write letters with birthday greetings to your mother. My how times have changed.
Via the Graphics Fairy

Hauraki Gulf Cruising Notes: Browns Island

Browns Island - An archaeological wonderland!
36°49’S 174°53’E

Scott is an archaeologist, so he loves nothing more than looking at historic sites and really old stuff. I'm hoping that this bodes well for me as I get older. I figure each human year I age is like a century in archaeological years. That makes me well over 4,000 years old now! Archaeologists really "dig" old things, so he'll think I'm really hot once I get some more wrinkles and gray hair. At least that's how the theory goes. So this one is for you Scott - a post about the archaeological wonders of Browns Island (also known as Motukorea) in the Hauraki Gulf. You are so darn lucky to be married to me - not only am I getting old, but I write about old stuff for you.

Browns Island has been occupied for a long time by the Maori with the Ngati Tama Te Ra iwi using the island as a gardening and fishing base for at least six centuries. It is important to note that when I say a "long time", this is relative to New Zealand. Humans have only been in New Zealand from around 1250-1300 when a group of Polynesians sailed here and made it their home. Although some scholars argue that there were earlier arrivals between 50-150. Academics like to fight among themselves using scholarly articles as their weapons. Either way, if you're from other parts of the world, you may think this is really recent.

So back to the story...William Brown and John Logan Campbell bought the island from the Ngati Tama Te Ra in 1840. Brown and Campbell settled on the island and stocked it with pigs which they planned to sell to the Europeans in Auckland. Ownership of the island got a bit tricky when Apiha Te Kawau of the Ngati Whatua decided to gift the island to the Crown. Somebody forgot to tell the Crown that Brown and Campbell had already bought the island. Oops. They eventually got things sorted out. Phew. After that there were a whole series of selling and buying and transferring ownership going on between various people and groups. The end outcome is that today the Auckland City Council owns the island with it being administered by the Department of Conservation. So in the end, the government won out and the island is theirs. But their mothers raised them right so the island is actually everyone's and you can visit provided you have your own boat. There is no ferry service. You can ask us for a lift if you want. Bring snacks. Preferably freshly baked cookies. With chocolate chips.

Once you get to Browns Island, there is a lot of cool archaeological stuff to see. The archaeological landscape is considered to be outstanding due to its completeness and intactness. Archaeologists like when things are intact. It gives them more stuff to dig up. (Yes Scott, I know. You want me to point out that archaeologists are all about preserving cultural heritage and don't randomly dig up stuff. Disclaimer duly noted.) There are a lot of interesting archaeological sites that you won't always find in the greater archaeological region, including archaic middens (translation - old trash dumps), fish traps and stone structures. Here are some of the highlights:

• Coastal midden site (R11/1100) - One of the largest on the island which indicates that most of the coast was occupied at some time or another. Moa bone was even found 20-25 cm below the surface. Moas are awesome birds. Too bad they are extinct. Or are they? Join the "Moa Preservation Society" and together we can bring them back from the dead. Scott and I are the founding members. For some reason, it hasn't really caught on yet. But with your help, that could all change. Annual membership is only $25 a year. A bargain.
• Paa on cone (R11/39) - The term "paa" can refer to any Maori village or defensive settlement, but is usually used to refer to hill forts. The one on the cone on Browns Island is unique in the Auckland region as the settlement is entirely fortified and defended by transverse ditches and banks across the crater rim at both ends. Do you remember building forts as a kid? This one is way better. There is also another paa on the lower ridge of the cone (R11/123) and two more at the bottom (R11/124 and R11/125).
• Other exciting Maori stuff - You can find remnants of stone garden field systems, fish traps and rock shelters on the island as well.  

If all that wasn't enough, you can also find the wrecks of old paddleboat steamers used by the Devonport Steam Ferry Company scattered about. And if you prefer flying to sailing, head up to the top of the cone and imagine the historic moment when the Barnard Brothers (the Kiwi equivalent to the Wright Brothers) made aviation history (in New Zealand at least) by flying their gliders off the slopes in 1909.

If you're interested in other posts in the "Hauraki Gulf Cruising Notes" series, check out this page.


An Iron Age crouched burial from a site in England. Scott seems to have a knack for finding human remains on the sites he works on.
I wonder if this is a skill that will come in handy when we're out sailing?

This is what a day in the life of the Cynical Sailor looks like (this is from a site in Scotland).
Archaeologists think dirt and old rocks are exciting. Thankfully, they also think sailing is exciting too.







More holes and rocks. This is a drying kiln from a Roman site that Scott worked on in England.

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