The Targa and everything else

The only other big item of equipment I got was a dinghy and an outboard motor for it. As with everything else compromises have to be made - the ideal I think would be a hard dinghy but that would have to be stowed on deck, so I got a "roll up" one. This means it has to be dragged up on deck at the destination and inflated with a footpump and then launched over the side from the foredeck. I thought about getting a derrick to lift it out of the water at the stern but there was already enough "stuff" back thre and in anycase you wouldnt want to leave it there heading across the Tasman. I found I could inflate and launch it in about 40 minutes by myself using a halyard to lift it up over the life lines. And then its a nervous manoevre to get the outboard that lives on the pushpit and transfer it onto the transom of the inflatable. But then youre off!

I still have the little fibreglass dinghy that on occasion has been stored on the foredeck. It cost $450 and I mainly use it to get out to the boat on the mooring in Sydney Harbour. Its paddlocked to a tree on the beach most of the time.

I have also bought an RFD 4 person liferaft. Its in a valise and stored below deck, the intention being to drag it out if its ever needed. The problem with that, and I only relaised this once I got it, is that its really heavy and difficult to drag around even with the boat on a mooring so Ive decided when it gets its first annual service next month I will ask them to repack into a case and I'll get it stowed on deck just in front of the solar panel - which is just in front of the dodger.

That solar panel is supposed to just maintain the battery from going flat when the boat isnt in use. I had no way of knowing if it was working - though I guess it must have been because the only time the battery went flat betwen trips was when I forgot to turn off the electrical switch - the Big Red one that isolates the batteries! And I didnt know what was happening to the batteries when things were "On" and "Off" or how well charged they were at any given moment so I was interested to read in a yachting mag one day there are battery monitors that can give you all that info. I got in touch with a guy called John, a marine elctrician and he came over to Sapphire one day and we had a long chat about all the electrical stuff that needed sorting out - basically it was everything! John did an amazing amount of work on the boat and it took for ever but in the end I had a beautiful new nav Station with a lovely switchboard with a Xantrex battery monitor, a "cigarrette lighter" thing to plug in stuff that needed power- say like my mobile phone- a new battery charger (to properly recharge the batteries from shore power), a proper connection for shore power to the boat, an inverter - which converts battery voltage (12volts, DC ) to 240 volts AC so you can plug in a toaster or a microwave say - this was all VERY foreign and new to me - a new VHF and an HF Radio and tuner with the backstay converted to the aerial,an inbuilt Koden GPS and a new in built marine stereo music player/AM/FM Radio. You can see the new nav station beside me in this photo:

As for the "Targa", this was a new term to me - its a frame that is erected over the cockpit with an awning and often other bits and pices hanging off it, such as a derrick to hoist the tender out of the water, or a Radar or a wind generator. My interest was in using it to support additional solar panels. John put me in touch with Laurence at Marine Stainless, who visited the boat while John and Adam were working on her one friday afternoon and, well to cut a long story short, Laurence built a wonderful stainless steel targa and fitted not solar panels but a wind generator. He also supplied and fitted a new pedestal and bigger wheel, new Rocna anchors and chain,new Raymarine autopilot to replace the worn out one that broke down a couple of times, new bilge pumps, a modern raw water filter - for engine cooling - and various other useful little things that Laurence could see would be good for the boat - for example an LED cockpit light fitted to the targa. Laurence was one of those energetic enthusiastic and charismatic types who just loves the sea and yachts and I benefitted hugely from his experience and his eagerness to help me out. He confessed later on that he and John had been trying to decide whether or not I was ever going to really go sailing or was I just going to fit the boat out and talk about it - in the end they decided I really was serious, and so thats when Laurence decided he would give me as much help as I could stand!

At the end of all this we had missed our deadline to go on our first real ocean voyage, a 414 nautical mile journey to Lord Howe island that we had been planning for months, but at least Sapphire by now was very much closer to being a genuine blue water cruiser, a "Pocket Cruiser" as Laurence called her. Approaching Lord Howe at Dawn