Woolwich Dockyard, Sydney - Lagoon 42 TPI catamaran haul out

After a few busy days at the boat show the time arrived to move Lucey Blue from Middle Harbor to Woolwich for her annual haul out. The trip down the harbor was a tad slow given our furry bottom and strong westerly winds. But we had fun and arrived late on Sunday afternoon ready for “our extraction” on Monday/Tuesday.

The facilities at Woolwich were impressive and despite the strong winds we had a quiet night or two tucked away snuggly in the historic dock near the center of Sydney.




Lucey Blue – a Lagoon 42 TPI – is 6.9m or 22 feet 8 inches wide and requires a pretty substantial travel lift to get out of the water. Luckily the yard is designed for boats much bigger than ours so while squeezing into the travel lift was a bit nerve wracking the job went smoothly under the supervision of Sean Langman and we were soon on the hard next to a 20 million dollar prototype carbon fiber super yacht.





Everyone enjoyed the show, but we were glad to be through stage one and ready for the real work ahead including the rudder repair, rigging renewal and other tasks.



Annual haul out at historic Woolwich Dockyard, Sydney - August 2010

2010 Sydney Boat Show - Jessica Watson and Lagoon Catamarans

Despite the crowds, we had fun at the boat show looking for odds and ends for Lucey Blue. The kids were great and put in a ten hour day on Saturday which is pretty impressive given Ryan is only four.

We managed to pick up (well...only just managed to pick up ;-) a new Rocna anchor:


...a heavily discounted digital TV system and a few cruising guides for the East coast of Australia from Boat Books.

I also spent some time admiring the Lagoon 400:


A real highlight was Jessica Watson's talk about her round the world solo adventure. Emily really enjoyed meeting Jessica and looking over Ella's Pink Lady.



We were also amazed to see Lucey Blue - a tiny blue spot with a big pink flag (white arrow) - near the head of the welcome home flotilla for Jessica (red arrow) on the back cover of the Jessica Waston's book - True Spirit:

Historic Woolwich Dockyard: Preparing for the annual haul-out and other big ticket items

We are preparing Lucey Blue for her annual haul-out and antifoul. This year will be a big one with the port rudder carbon fiber shaft, steering quadrant and bearings due to be repaired by Noakes Shipwrights at their Woolwich Dock site.









I am not sure how the shaft was damaged, but I guess over 30,000 nautical sea miles and a loose steering quadrant might have something to do with it!!!!

We will also take the opportunity to replace the lower oil seals on the Volvo Penta sail drive legs, the stainless steel standing rigging on the mast and repair the cover on the starboard sail drive well while we are out of the water.





Noakes are one of the best shipwrights in Australia with a long history in rigging repairs, composite construction and Sydney to Hobart Maxis. The Woolwick dock site is also pretty spectacular - carved into the solid sandstone cliffs by labourers between 1897 and 1901.









We've also got the Sydney Boat Show on this coming weekend, so a great chance to source various bits and pieces that we have been looking for.

Winter escape on Sydney Harbour

Well, it is still getting to minus 5 degrees C in the mornings down in Canberra, but our Sydney getaway weekends on Lucey Blue remind us that summer is just around the corner. On the boat the kids didn't seem to notice the cold and continued to play water sports.











Even Sam only needed a beanie in the morning and by the afternoon everyone was in shorts and T-shirts and the cockatoos came to play (we kept a close eye on him and his big chewing beak).....







After mucking around in the sun, Emily and Sam inspected our new steering idler only to find a large pool of rain water which needed to be bailed out by hand. Emily went into the void under the cockpit floor to bail, but soon wanted to escape the confined space.......





The source of the rainwater was a bit of a mystery for a while, but turned out to be the locker under the cockpit table which had been jam full of inflatable dinghy and overflowed in the rain!!!!

While the girls were playing, Ryan and Dad explored the front bow locker for a suitable place to install a salt water deck wash system and larger sullage tank as ours is currently only 40 liters. I am always amazed at the size of our bow lockers when we get a chance to empty out all the bits and pieces. But then I remember that one of the previous owners used to have a spare single berth in one and a toilet in the other - crazy!!!!!







Despite the long drive and short time onboard we all love the time away from Canberra. One minute you're swimming in work-related tasks and the next you're in another world.