@@deemacvee1 I didn’t notice any, but I wasn’t really looking. There may be some further up the creek. There is not a lot of wharf space either. What there is seems to be taken up by locals and boat hire. I got the last spot on the public wharf.

Thank you. I will sent the Spencer store a message. Downsizing next year. Hope to join you on a raid one day.

Thank you. There are thousands of stories that could be told about the river. You can only tell a few in a short sailing video!

Hi Paul. Funnily enough - there is no collision detection, but I only hit the trees maybe 3 times. The Bar Island footage was shot with a Hoverair X1 flying camera. It is fully autonomous and has no controller and flies preset moves that centre around recognition of the human in the middle of them. If there is a tree or anything else in the way of the move it just hits the them. But the props are in a cage so no damage done. You can adjust parameters like height, radius and distance from a phone app before launching. It launches from your hand and when the task is done it returns and lands on your outstretched hand. The modes used were follow mode, dolly track (follow mode from the front), hover and birdseye (with a slow corkscrew). I love it. It so easy to use and fast to deploy compared to a drone. It also records synchronised sound though the phone app and digitally removes the whine of the propellers. Just can’t be used over water. It needs a textured ground surface to sense its movement and positioning. When it encounters water it just starts landing. I’ve got a DJI Mini 4 Pro for the water stuff. I’ve fitted a home made carbon fibre catching handle made from a cable tie and carbon fibre arrow shaft and successfully launched and retrieved from the boat. Landing was very difficult until on my 4th attempt I worked out the problem was the anti collision sensors making it jump away on approach as it sensed the mast. It was easy peasy once I turned the sensors off. Now I just have to practice flying and filming with it.

@@Cruising_Pamela_B Hi yes I seen the X1 but didn't know you had one,I thought it was the DJI mini...the noise cancelling is very effective.

Heights Railway Bridge 11.4m Road Bridges 11.1m Depths Railway Bridge 10-12m Road Bridges 18-19m Cascade Bay 0.5m (but about 6m about 50m off shore) Bar Island 1-2m Big Jimmy’s Point 10-13m Marlow 13-15m Spencer 10-11m (1.5m at the public jetty)

@@Cruising_Pamela_B Thankyou, Plenty of mast clearence as my mast height from water line is 10.1 mtr. A deep waterway. Plenty of chain and rode required.

Glad you enjoyed it

Thank you. It’s hard to believe that just over the hill line to the south is the urban sprawl of Sydney.

@@Cruising_Pamela_B Yes it is amazing .

Thanks Anthony. I’ve been trying to get out since March, but the weather has been atrocious every weekend. Hopefully not as long between drinks for the next one

Thanks Alex. I’ve been trying to get out since March, but the weather has been atrocious every weekend. Hopefully not as long between drinks for the next one

No. I was lucky enough to find one of only four in Australia for sale.

It’s a bit of an illusion really. I have an inclinometer inside and it never goes beyond 30 - 35 degrees. The distance from deck to keel is bigger than the beam at any point along the hull. It’s a bit “plank on edge”. So it heels quickly in any wind to 30 degrees. That puts the gunwhale about 6 inches above the waterline. But it never goes any further. I recently experimented with an extra 70kg in water ballast but it made no difference to stiffness but man it slowed the boat down. It’s never given me a moment’s worry even in strong winds. The most it’s gone over is in a massive gust where the water was running halfway up the cabin window for maybe 5 seconds. By that stage you are sailing inside with the hatch shut so even in a complete knockdown no water can come in. That’s the beauty of the boat - when everyone else is drenched wearing heavy wet weather gear I’m dry as a bone wearing a t shirt.

There is about 9 inches more hoist on the yard possible, so next year I might get another sail taking the yard up that amount and leave the luff the same length. This will send the peak of the sail up a considerable amount and it will be both bigger and the yard more vertical. That’s probably as far as I can take it without a taller mast.

Yes - it’s the lowest. Made it with a few inches to spare. But Hexham was pretty low too, but it might be an illusion how close it looked.

Thanks Phillip. It was a long day. I considered going back at the halfway mark, but ended up going on because the bar at Newcastle was always going to be safer than the bar at Swansea.

@@Cruising_Pamela_B Never been over the bar at Newcastle but the bar at Swansea in a strong N/E could be a bit hairy. I hope to meet you when I join in with the Sydney Raid group after I build a Goat Island Skiff. I chose it for its simplicity. I don't want to spend another 5 yrs building a boat. If you search Mad Hatter Sailing you can see my last build and current boat. It goes on a trailer but not really a raid boat.

A camping multi cell air mattress and sleeping bag. The end tapers so it fits into the narrower floor at the front of the boat and it’s just over 6 feet between the bulkheads. Takes about 30 seconds to inflate. The biggest problem occurs when I forget to bring the dogs mattress and we fight over who gets the airbed.

They are all Powertech panels from Jaycar electronics. The two flexible panels are 50w each and the small rigid panel on the rear deck is 10w.

@@Cruising_Pamela_B many thanks for the prompt reply.

Then another tenuous link exists. My late wife’s family has a tradition of the first male child having Collingwood as a middle name and it dates back to that link I think. The eldest male in the family have been in the RN for hundreds of year. My father in law migrated and transferred to the RAN. My stepson who has the name also joined the RAN. My wife and her sister (no males that generation) were both christened on the Victory.

It’s international code flag “R” - “R” for “raid”.

I intended to, but got there so late and then met Dave and Fiona at the wharf and I just ran out of time. Morpeth is a town partly caught in a time warp. The Main Street hasn’t changed that much since early last century, but the rest of the village is now pretty much swallowed up by the urban sprawl spreading out from Newcastle to the east and Maitland to the west.

Thanks Tony

I thought lack of amps could be the limiting factor for the trip. So I was pretty strict on not using it much going up and I got there with 80% charge still available. But coming back I had to run it a long way with no wind and there was only 30% or so left leaving Raymond Terrace, so I switched the boat battery to the outboard and the 110W of solar panels too. Really- I didn’t need to run it but I was conscious of the gusty winds, strong tidal currents and the rocks and oyster beds and on about occasions I ended up in irons because as I tacked the wind followed me round through the tack - it was all over the place. In the end it was the afternoon thunderstorm and bad light that beat me. I would have made it with ease if it stayed sunny all afternoon. Funny thing was the sun came out as I went up Throsby Creek and as I got to the NCYC the propeller started spinning again ( I had pulled the outboard up but hadn’t turned it off). I didn’t need it by then as there was a nice little SE behind me and got home pretty easily once I got past the tugs and the high rise west end of town.

Thank you. The boat is about 10 years old. It was built by an Adelaide based academic and was originally named Thor. I think he taught Scandanavian archaeology and the timbers have runic inscriptions on them. She has a lot more fibreglass sheathing than the original plans indicate. I was going to build one, but stumbled across a thread on the Paradox forum where some negotiations about selling her seemed to go nowhere so I PM’d the owner asking if she was still for sale - and she was - so I bought her sight unseen and he offered to bring it as far as Mildura and I drove to there from Newcastle to collect it - a round trip of 2,324km. There are only 4 in Australia so it was quite a fluke to get hold of her. She has a hollow round mast - unlike the square one shown in the plans Since getting her I’ve altered a few things. I ditched the petrol outboard and replaced with an electric one. I’ve installed a 110W solar system with 100aH lithium iron battery and a fridge up the front. I have lights and nav. lights. I have a porta-potti under the rear deck, and a gimballed butane stove. Lastly I got a modified sail made, kicking the yard up at a much steeper angle to the area went up about 20%. That coupled with a vanging system has made the boat perform heaps better.

It’s actually 2 chains laced together with a rope so it behaves as a single chain and also the rope dampens any rattling on the deck. The reason for the two chains is that the boat is too short for the recommended chain length ! So the idea is that the heavier shorter length more or less compensates. Seems to work ok - I’m yet to drag the anchor. I can raise and lower the anchor without leaving the cabin which is the main reason for the setup. As Paradox’s are so narrow with a high freeboard they get the rock and rolls big time if you go walking on the deck.