Gippsland Lakes Boat Camping 2009

On a long weekend in early March the boys and I set out on our second camp cruising expedition on the Gippsland Lakes. The Gippsland Lakes are a set of coastal lakes feed by four rivers and border the coast in eastern Victoria. They are an ideal small boating location with many interesting rivers and arms to explore, shallow in a lot of places and with little tide as their opening to the sea is via a narrow channel at Lakes Entrance.

After a week of stormy and unsettled weather the forecast for the weekend was looking good with westerly winds for the Saturday and easterly for the Sunday and Monday. We launched the boat at just after 9:30am on Saturday from Lock Sport, a small town at the western end of Lake Victoria and the main lakes system.
We headed out with the jib furled and a reef tucked in the main in a 15 knot north wester that was whipping up a few whitecaps on the shallow water. My oldest son Jordan took the helm with my younger son Connor in the bow complete with three cornered hat. He had decided that he would be the Captain for this voyage and mother had dutifully stitched three corners into a felt hat from his extensive arsenal of dress-ups.With the strong northwester on our quarter we made rapid progress towards our first destination for the trip, Wilson’s Point at the tip of Sperm Whale head. Even with reduced sail we managed our top speed of the weekend on this leg at 6.5 knots.
After about three hours of sailing, during which the Captain “discovered” and named a few points along the way, we eased the bow into the beach beside the jetty at Wilson’s Point.It was good to have that section of the voyage over as the boat was well loaded and sitting down, the centercase about 3” above the water. After swamping the boat at Christmas and not being able to recover it due to the centercase being below the water I am still a bit nervous about a repeat. For this trip I added another 70 litres of buoyancy in the form of plastic containers and a strap in buoyancy box that doubles as dry storage.

Sperm Whale Head is at the centre of the Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park that runs along the south side of the lakes. At Wilson’s Point there are good facilities for boaties with 48 hour moorings at the jetty and toilet and picnic facilities ashore. This is common throughout the park.

Once we had completed lunch, done a little fishing and checked out the pelicans and black swans at the point we set on our way to our camp site at Bunga Arm. The entrance to Bunga Arm is through a narrow channel that even a small boat like ours needs to follow. Other areas of shallow water are not marked but black swans with their bums in the air feeding off the bottom are a good indication of places to avoid.

Down Bunga Arm, which runs for about 10km parallel to the ocean beach there are a number of groups of campsites cut into the bush. These are grouped into about a dozen sites with toilet facilities nearby. At $12 for two nights these are a bargain. We easily found our spot from the water and pulled into shore to be greeted by a couple of guys lounging on deck chairs. Their mates were out in their fizz boat doing delivery trips to bring across the needed supplies of tents, bbq, generator, stereo, chainsaw and liquid refreshments. Our setup is considerably simpler with a small three person tent, gas cooker, a few pots and plates and supplies. Oh and the “Jolly Roger”, well it wouldn’t be a boys own adventure without pretending we are pirates.

After a bit of fishing in which we only caught weed we settled down for some pasta and tomato sauce for dinner around a camp fire we had built from the ample supply of branches and twigs in the area. If only we brought marshmallows. At 9pm we turned in to the sounds of the ocean breakers crashing on the beach behind us and the music of the guys next door.

The next day started with porridge enjoyed standing on the warm sand covering the embers of the fire from the night before. We set off just after 10am for Rotomah Island in a light easterly of probably 5 knots. It wasn’t long before this died and I was on the oars to get us down Bunga Arm and into the channel where we picked up the breeze again and made slow progress to land at Rotamah by 12:30pm. It wasn’t long until Connor had struck up a conversation with a couple seated at the jetty who were admiring the boat. It is seldom that we land anywhere without somebody coming for a look and a chat.

Rotomah is a small island below Sperm Whale Head and again is part of the Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park. Reportedly there is quite a bit of wildlife on this island including ostriches, kangaroos and koalas. We didn’t manage to spot any but the ground evidenced their presence with droppings everywhere. Snakes, did I mention snakes! Apparently they are there too but we certainly weren’t looking for them.

After lunch, a bit of fishing (still no fish) and wandering about we jumped back in the boat and headed back to camp in a freshening south easterly breeze. When we arrived back to camp we tied up alongside one of the many cruise boats that take tourists around the lakes. They made comment that we were one of the only sailboats they had seen all day actually sailing. I guess when the other option is rowing that’s not surprising.

After dinner we ventured over the wooded sand dunes behind camp to the ocean beach. This is less than 100 meters from camp and provides great views east and west along the slowly arching coast line.

With the high pressure taking hold we awoke the next morning to a beautiful sunrise and again a light easterly breeze. After breakfast we broke camp at about 9:30am and headed over to Duck Arm on our way back to Lock Sport. Once we had navigated the channel in the light breeze Connor took the helm and held a true course across Lake Victoria to Duck Arm.

It had been mentioned to me that Duck Arm was a lovely little spot but it is truly one of those places you need to visit to appreciate how lovely it is. On the back of the building breeze we entered the narrow channel at the entrance to Duck Arm and rounded up to beach ourselves next to a number of boats moored stern in on a steeply shelving beach. Upon stepping ashore we were greeted by the skipper next door enthusing over our boat.





After a short lunch I walked through the bush on the spit to survey conditions out on the lake. The updated forecast was for 10-15 knots of south easter building to 20 knots in the afternoon. Since we were now on the northern side of Lake Victoria I was not keen on a reach in 20 knots with waves fetched from the other side of the lake. Part of me was hoping that it had come in early and trapped us here for the night but on reaching the other side it looked to be in the 10-15 knot range as forecast.

With a furled jib and a reefed main we set sail to the disgruntlement of the boys and beat out against the breeze until we could bear away down the lake on a beam reach to Lock Sport. While beating into the wind without a jib made it more difficult than required I didn’t want to be over powered and require Jordan to have to go forward and fight it down in a building sea.

Once around the shoal marker at the sand spit on the Duck Arm headland we spotted one of those “what the ...” type of craft running down the lake before us. The deck house on this old tub was probably providing more drive than the second-hand undersize mainsail that did not trouble the head of the mast or the end of the boom. We quickly unfurled the headsail and set off in pursuit. There is nothing like a little challenge to make the long leg go faster.

About twenty minutes into this leg we were approached, as had occurred on several occasions over the weekend by a power boat travelling to fast and to close. Our frantic attempts to wave them away for greater clearance were interpreted as us being very friendly folk and they waved back as a 1 meter wave curled off their transom. As the wake approached I hardened up into the wind to take it head on when it rose on the back on the building sea to a breaking wave about 1.5 meters high. We smashed through the wave taking onboard a few litres of water and giving off a few choice words in the perpetrators direction. We bore away with the wind and continued our pursuit.

It wasn’t long before we had caught our target and passed him to windward being waved pass by the proud owner with a toothless smile. Looking at his boat close up, I wouldn’t have expected anything else. We carried on our way at a steady 5-6 knots, being taunted by Jordan in the bow holding the GPS confidently declaring I wouldn’t get his 6.5 knot record. At 3:30pm we flew into the jetty at Lock Sport to finish another very enjoyable weekend on the Gippsland Lakes.

Gippsland Lakes Boat Camping 2008

For our first boat camping experience we decided to spend a few days on the Gippsland Lakes in east Victoria. The lakes are a wonderful small boat location as there are so many places to explore that can not be seen on a larger boat.

On our first day we set up camp at the lakeside camp at Eagle Point at one of the northern most parts of the lakes system. Early the next morning we packed up our tent and gear and set off for Metung on the eastern end of the lake. Making due east we followed the silt jetties from the Mitchell River that extend nearly 7km into the lake. Apparently they are some longest in the world.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

Once we reached the end of the jetties we headed south along the lakes edge until we rounded the point at the end of Metung and tied up at the public wharf for some lunch. Metung is a lovely little town that is placed on a spit that reaches into the channels that run to the eastern extent of the lake and run into the sea at Lakes Entrance.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

Looking for a campsite for the night we left Metung and headed up Chainman’s Creek with a light breeze pushing us along and a ripple on the water playing music on the laps of the hull. For the most part Chainman’s Creek runs wide for a few hundred meters and is a natural marina with jetties out either side before it diminishes into a narrow creek.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

Part way up the creek we found a small headland that shelved quickly to deep water. We anchored the boat between the headland and a jetty and setup camp for the night. After trying our hand at fishing for a while we cooked dinner and then turned in for the night.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

The next day we set out early and stopped in at Metung for breakfast before we headed back across the lake to Eagle Point, we had realised we had left some of our gear behind and wanted to collect it before heading to Duck Arm for the next evening. Half way back the wind died completely and rowed for Paynesville to wait for some more wind. Paynesville is set at the junction between Lake Victoria and King Lake. The straight is formed between the mainland and Raymond Island.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

Paynesville waterfront is very much a working port with all of development happening on a series of manmade canals on the northern side of the straight. After lunch we explored the canals on a light breeze before exiting out into Lake King to head back to Eagle Point for the night.

The next morning we when into Bairnsdale to seek out the local Parks Victoria Office to try and book a camping site for the night at one of the National Parks on the lake. Unfortunately the office did not open and we headed back to Eagle Point to get out on the water mid morning. The forecast SW breeze had built up to over 10 knots and rose to over 15 knots shortly afterwards. We were beating into the breeze and taking a bit of water over the bow so we decided to wait out the wind by heading to shore just short of Point Fullerton.

From Gippsland Lakes Cruise Feb 2008

Three hours later the wind had not abated and with a bad gash in my toe from stepping on stick when landing we decided to head back to Eagle Point for the evening. The next morning the toe had become infected and we had to head home for medical treatment.

Varnish and Paint

Suddenly all the woodwork was finished and it was time for the finishing work.

I started with the varnish work first on the basis that I could paint over varnish but not vice versa.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

To start with I sealed the hull inside and out with two coats of epoxy. This was sanded down once dry and hard to give a smooth surface for the varnish. In hindsight I should have also filled some of the small gaps with coloured epoxy. This is made with a combination of glue filler and wood flour in the epoxy to get the right colour. Now, over a year down the track the varnish is starting to deteriorate from the edge of these gaps. The inside of the hull and transom was given five coats of varnish.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

I then flipped her over and started by sanding the epoxy coats and then applied two coats of primer. I used the International Interlux paint system which is a single pot paint and give a good finish with just roller and brush.

At this point I erected a very big tarp that I held aloft with a number of tent poles and ropes. After the primer I gave the hull a light sand and filled some of the little dents etc that seems to stand out at this point even though it was checked carefully at the previous stage. Next two coats of undercoat, sand again and then three final coats with a light sand after the second of these.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

To promote good chemical bonds I ensured that there was only about 24 hours between coats which required me to rise early before work and apply a coat to start the day. When a coat was to be sanded I would leave it a bit longer to allow it to be a bit harder.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

In the photo above you can see the masking on the transom. The paint needs to cover the end of the ply on the plank. I decided to make the planks look about 10mm think by masking inside the planks which I think looks better that having the thinner 6mm of the plank and definitely better than having the paint not follow the planks.

All up the finishing did not take that long but it did require a dedicated three weeks of work each and every day. This is not something easily done on weekends as per my usual work schedule.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

Rail Caps

OK its been a while since I have posted here and since I have actually launched the boat and enjoyed some great sailing I had better finish off the build posts so I can get on with the sailing part.

From Knees, Seats and Breasthook - Penobscot 14

So here are some of the finishing parts of the boat. Let start with the rail cap. I used Douglas Fir or Oregon Pine depending on where you are from. For this I started with the caps on the breast hook and quarter knees. These were screwed into place and trimmed for the correct over hangs. Don't get to aggressive here as it is better wait until you have evrything on and then you can shape them as one.

For the mounting blocks for the oar locks, which sit proud of the rail cap, I left the ends at full hight and fitted and screwed these to the gunnel's as well. I then removed the mounting blocks so I could lay full boards over the gunnel's to shape the rail caps as they sweep around. This way I could cut out the birds mouth joint concentrating just on the shape of this part of the joint without worrying about lining up the sides of the rail.

From Knees, Seats and Breasthook - Penobscot 14

Once this part of the joint was right I pushed the joint up tight and screwed the mounting blocks back down on top of the rail cap to trace out the birds mouth joint at the other end. I was conservative in cutting this end out so that when the rail was put back in place it had to be slightly sprung into place between the quarter and the mounting block.

From Knees, Seats and Breasthook - Penobscot 14

Once satisfied with this joint I screwed along the rail cap and then marked and cut the rail cap. I followed this procedure for all the caps and then did the final shaping on the boat. This included using my Dremmel tool to sand down the mounting blocks to the height of the rail.

From Knees, Seats and Breasthook - Penobscot 14

Now typically you would finish the rail cap off with wooden plugs but I decided on something a little different. In New Zealand the Maori have always used Paua shell to decorate their carvings and boats. The Paua is a shell fish in the Abalone family and the Paua is a particularly colourful variety. It just so happened that I had a bag of Paua shell cut as button blanks that pretty much fitted the holes left by the screws. These were shaped and set in epoxy on top of the screws and sanded flat with the rail when dry.

From Painting and Varnishing - Penobscot 14

Seat Laminations

One of the things that I have noticed when looking at other people's boats is the stark contract between different woods in the boat. While the Fijian Kauri that I used goes very well with the marine ply, I wanted to ensure all of the seats blended together and looked to be made of the same wood.

To achieve this I laminated thin planks of Fijian Kauri onto the forward and rear seats to cover up the ply tops. This had the added bonus of being able to get a nice tight finish at the edge as trying to achieve this with the ply alone is a difficult job.

The planks were made by splitting a 19mm board in three and then using the thicknesser to bring them down to 3mm. Once all of the boards were shaped I set them in epoxy glue and weighted them down with bricks. Once set the trim bit on the router was used to aligned the front with the bulkhead ready for the edging piece to be added.

Another little trick to used at this stage is to mix some wood flour with your glue. By doing this your glue lines start to look like wood and blend in rather than the ugly white colour of the glue that you will never hide. Just mix enough in to change the colour to what you want, it will not change any as it dries.

Seats

Here are a few shots of the seats. These all came together quite quickly other than of course cutting the recess for the stringers. I wish I could give you some good advice on how to do this but I can't. The best I can do is to say sharpen your tools and place your work bench close to your boat because getting this to look good is a slow and patient process involving a lot of testing and then back to the bench.

Oh, chalk; this would be my piece of advice. Cover the stringer with chalk so you can see where the seat is touching the stringer.

To set the locations of the seat supports you first need to level the boat on its water line and athwart ships. I have a self leveling laser that really helps with doing this type of thing. Once it was level I moved it inside the boat and marked all of the support locations.

I am going to put an 1/8 inch veneer on the fore and aft seats so that the wood matches all of the way through the boat on the seats. To do this I had to lift the seats all around this height. The other benefit of this was in fitting the plywood to these areas. I used the tick stick method but still found that I couldn't get a really good fit. However the veneers are only 4 inches wide so fitting these is a lot easier to get a good finish.

Breast hook

My approach to the breast hook is a bit different to what Arch describes. For a start I laminated the block up from two pieces of 3/4 inch Fijian Kauri with the grain running at right angles.

Rather than scribing the lines on the block and shifting them as Arch describes I started by making a template from some ply scrap. This gave me an exact pattern at the top of the sheer. I then copied this onto the bottom of the block. I cut the block on the bandsaw to these lines square to the block surface.

One little amendment to this is due to the angle of the stem and the fact that the top of the block is 1/4 inch above the sheer. To account for this the top edge against the stem needs to be moved forward, 1/8 inch in my case.

Next I cut the angle to match the back of the stem. In my case this meant moving the line under the block back 3/4 an inch. I cut down to this line with a saw and chiseled out the waste. From here I was ready to cut the angle on the side of the breast hook to match the angle of the sheer. First I scribed a line 1/4 down from the top surface, the level of the top of the sheer. I then set the bandsaw to the angle of the sheer and cut the edges of the breast hook so that the top of the cut was 1/4 from the top surface.

Perfect fit! All that was left to do was plane the camber into the top of the breast hook to bring the edges down to the top of the sheer.

In the end I think this was a good way of doing this as I was confident that the block would be the correct shape rather than risking moving several lines. However having never done the latter then I’m not sure how difficult it would be.

Turn over day!

The day finally arrived where I could turn here over. After two coats of epoxy it was looking great and all that was required was a few more hands and a few bubbles of course.
Finally outside and looking great. This is the first time I could stand back and look at the boat and appreciate the length.
Now with that done it is time for a drink all round.

Rudder and Tiller

I built the rudder over Christmas in between too much food and beer. To build the rudder I diverted from the instructions a bit. First I created a board using some Fijian Kauri and Tasmanian Oak. Next I made a template from plywood from the dimensions on the plan. I used the template to mark out the rudder on the board and cut it close to the line with the bandsaw. I then used the template to trim the board to its final shape with the router.

Next I marked on the rudder the cutout for the tiller and the bottom edge of the cheeks. I then attached the cheeks to the rudder with screws above and below the tiller slot and then trimmed the cheeks to shape using the router. I then removed the cheeks and used the bandsaw to cut the rudder into its three peices.

Here is the end of my tiller. Probably a bit much for a small boat but it was a bit of fun doing it.