'Suzie" has a new manifold courtesy of Klassen's Diesel, Vancouver. The old manifold finally corroding through due to a raw water leak from the heat exchanger. Leak fixed and manifold fitted .. back in business :-)

Madhatter II now has a new home with the purchase of a powered berth on Rayond Island, Jetty 161 off Western Bvd.

Stowage problem with gas bottle for BBQ lashed on rear deck .... solution, through deck quick disconnect fitting connected directly to vessels main gas supply, with isolating switch for safety. Thanks to Kim from Riviera Gasfitting who did an excellent job.

The gear box was sent to and overhauled by Marine Gearbox Services at Mt Kuring-Gai, in NSW (tel: 02 9457 6644). The clutch plates were badly worn, bearings worn and significant wear on the input and output shafts. All parts were repaired / renewed , including a new drive damper plate and tested, followed by a fresh paint job before being set back to Paynesville for the arduous task of fitting it back behind 'Suzie' ,

Down for the week at Bull's, Andrew and Ruth dropped over last night on their Nolex 30 for a quick coffee and arranged to go sailing on Sunday. The boat needs a tub down, all the crap from the trees on the shoreline have covered the deck.

The wind persisted throughout the night and saw the radar reflector get dislodged from the mizzen mast and slam dunked into Bass Strait. We encountered a couple of fishing vessels out of Lakes one of which came over to check out the crazy people on the sail bare yacht and on satisfying themselves we weren't in any distress made comment over the PA about turning our bloody VHF on and went about their business.
We reached Lakes Entrance just before day break, the wind had died down to about 15 knots and it was the start of the out going tide. We killed about half a hour so as to get better light and visuals and headed in. The Lakes bar had not been crossing by any of us before so it was all hands on deck with eyes glued to the light arrays. Got caught in a wave on the east side of the channel which fortunately swepted us sideways into the entrance. Once inside it was a simply matter of negotiating the Narrows or in our case the Shallows on once clear it was a leisurely trip under motor across Lake King around Raymond Island and into Paynesville. Pulled into Bull's Cruisers at about 0840.