The Learning Curve

The day I handed over the cheque and got the keys, I paid my sailing adviser to come with me for my first ever sail on Sapphire. He spent a lot of time looking over the boat with me, finding all the through-hull fittings, checking the safety gear, finding the fire extinguishers life jackets and life ring, the stowed sails, checking the oil in the engine and so on. And then we started the motor, cast off from our temporary mooring, headed out into Pitwater and pulled up the main and then the headsail. Next came that magical moment that still turns me on when I turned off the motor, everything goes quiet except for the sound of water slipping by , and we were sailing. It was a cool but sunny wednesday afternoon with a 12 to 15 knot breeze to help us across Broken Bay towards Lion Island. It was a wonderful feeling to be Skipper on my own yacht at last.

From then on it was just Sue and me as we headed up the steep learning curve, steadily pushing back at the boundaries of our own fear and inexperience. Each time we returned home after a sail I would think about all the things that we had done that day or that weekend that we had never done before - such as setting an anchor and retrieving it, doing a gybe, docking the boat against a jetty rather than onto a swing mooring - to fill up with diesel and water for the first time - changing a headsail, putting a reef in the main, negotiating a squall with gusts up to 36knots, discovering how to use the Raymarine Autopilot, the VHF Radio, pulling the Log out of its thru-hull fitting to get the growth out of the wheel so that it would work(!), sleeping and cooking on board..... everything was new to us as we explored the safe and sheltered waters of the Lower Hawkesbury, Cowan Creek and Broken Bay.

Eventually though we had to get Sapphire to Sydney Harbour - Port Jackson -where we had a permanent swing mooring at Five Dock Bay, and this meant "going outside" a term we heard from other yachties with a slightly anxious tone, meaning going out into the Ocean away from the protected waters and bays of Pittwater. On one of the sailing courses I met a guy who had a 34 foot yacht in Sydney Harbour for four years and "went outside" three times - always to Pittwater and back, and on one occasion half way back the boat started to fill with water. He discovered the water was pouring in through the stern tube and managed to plug it and get home safely, but then he decided to sell up and just charter yachts when he went on holiday.These scary war stories reflect the truth about the ocean, that it is a more dangerous place than coastal waterways and harbours, and demands a higher level of care and preparation and planning than is needed otherwise. And so for us , making that step up to sailing in the actual ocean was another big step up the learning curve that we were keen to make, though at the same time apprehensive.

Initially we had thought about getting my yachting advisor to come along as back up but in the end we decided not to, because by then we had been sailing Sapphire for four months and been out over a dozen times. We felt we knew Sapphire well enough and our own abilities well enough to be able to safely head out into the ocean as long as the weather was OK. The trip was only about 15 nautical miles but nevertheless we anxiously watched the forecasts over the few days before the planned trip.

Off Manley

In fact it all went well, except for two things: the wind was from the South west so we heading straight into it, and for some strange reason Sue got seasick and had to lie down for most of the ocean journey which took 6 hours as we tacked into a 15 knot headwind. Reaching in through Sydney heads for the first time was another "First" and we were ecstatic,the anxiety of the previous weeks vanishing as we sailed past the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge, our first Ocean Voyage successfully completed.

Coming in through Sydney Heads for the first time.

Past the Opera House and Under the Harbour Bridge

On the Mooring at Five Dock

Over the next 18 months or so we went "outside" 7 times - south a short distance to overnight at Port Hacking, three returns to Pittwater, and another to Pittwater that I did by myself, and two trips to Port Stephens and back. There were also numerous day trips out onto Sydney Harbour, and a couple of attempts to head up to Pittwater that were abandoned because the winds were too light. And I hate motoring. And another thing I was starting to hate was sailing on Sydney harbour. I'll explain why in the next Post.