Sailing/Fishing report – Gippsland lakes

[Smish]

In a nutshell, best I could do was sail about 60 degrees into a 10 knot wind and hold a steady course going fast enough to troll for tailor. The previous day, tandem with the big bro at the rear in 30 knot winds was a complete disaster; don’t know whether it was coordination issues, weight distribution or design failure but as the bro confirmed it was impossible to point the contraption even vaguely into the wind with some sort of forward momentum. A rethink is in order and the possible culprit is the rigidity of my first design - the pvc is too stiff, I’m thinking I need something light and flexible that will pull to form the right shape into the wind.

The sail also needs to be bigger for my “balloon”… 16ft sq. wasn’t even interesting in 30 knots with “0” chance of flipping… managed around 4 knots running 90 degrees to the wind which was slightly invigorating, I reckon I can double the area, and still sail safely in winds up to 30 knots (and when you think about it, seas beyond 30 knots are no fun for fishing!). So I’m building a 32 ft sq. sail which should have enough pull into the wind to give me some half decent performance in lighter conditions.

All in all sailing is fun, it’s satisfying to see the bow breaking through the waves and a wake behind the boat, then tying everything down and trolling some lures for a chance to snag a fish… total bliss!

Fishing report for Gippsland lakes… lots of juvenile salmon, pan sized tailor and flathead to just over a kilo, some very big marks on the sounder but showed no interest in anything I threw at them. At Eastern beach in the surf I managed some nice salmon averaging 1.6kg… the biggest at just over 62cm. I spotted some goodsized bream during an early morning walk with SWMBO but for diplomatic reasons I wasn’t carrying a fishing rod at the time…



Cheers,

Andrew

[ELM]

Bummer about the sail smish, but at least you gave it a good shove and the rethink I am sure will turn heads and bow waves.