The boat etc….

Some people have asked about this myterious sailing boat of mine, etc, and want to know more about it.

Firstly…she is twenty-seven feet long, and about nine feet wide. Her name is ‘Last Laugh’ and you will usually hear me on VHF radio as her registered name “Papa Kilo Four Three Two – Quebec”.

She is a Bruce Roberts design, however the original cabin top she was designed to have was altered and raised the headroom to over six feet. (This leads me to believe that the original owner was tall).

Secondly, Last Laugh was altereded again in about 1999 to do away with the tiller arm and be replaced with a stainless steering wheel. The fridge had alterations too, expanding it’s area by three fold, as well as the inclusion of a new radar system. She sailed over the ‘Cape’ from Cairns and around to Darwin shortly after. This completed it’s new outfit and her life as an ‘Over the top’ voyager.

WHilst radar is a handy item to have on a boat of this size… radar is a little overkill. She also is fitted with a depth sounder, autohelm, GPS, 27meg and VHF radio. She can sleep comfortably up to five people, but under sail she works best with two.

The plans show a fin under her hull,….and for those who are interested in it’s depth….it goes down about 1.35mtrs into the murky depths (5 feet) and contains over two tonnes of lead. This means that I have to watch carefully about the areas I can travel, the charts, and the depth sounder. In Moreton Bay, knowing where five feet below is.. can mean the difference of enjoying a day out, or waiting nine hours to escape it’s trap!

So far, my journeys have been event free and I plan to keep it that way.

Reading charts, tides, currents and winds, and how the boat responds to each of them is what it’s been about. Two tonnes of lead below the waterline means I have the assurance of being kept upright at even the worst times under sail.

The greastest angle I have lurched with her continually is thirty five degrees. She pulls and pushes at the rudder, and the sails shake with the pressures that change around the canvas, but she holds course and waits for what comes next. At forty degrees, water comes over her gunulls and run down the side, and at forty five degrees…water continually runs into the self draining cockpit.

The weather is what sailing is about. Understanding it, working with it, knowing when to go, when not to go, when to change plans, when to use bits of information from the Bureau of Meteorology, and then all of it… can make a difference.

Last Laugh has been a very seaworthy vessell in her time. She has proved herself over two decades, and now I am at her helm waiting to take her places too. I

-M