Gaiasdream

With the near complete boat now on the river and having finally freed-up enough space in the shed, I began work on the boom, an engine box and the giant mast. Considerably longer than the shed, the mast had to be laid out diagonally from one corner to the other. Like the rest of Gaiasdream, the mast was built of plywood and glassed over for extra strength.

In early December 2009 I took Gaiasdream downriver, beneath the Princes Highway and railway bridge, for her mast to be craned into place.

As many cruisers can attest, the Kalang River mouth has a nasty bar at its entrance, even by the standards of our notorious east coast, posing an interesting start to Gaiasdream’s maiden voyage. Nonetheless, later that day she was squeezed onto the end of an outer pontoon at Coffs Harbour International Marina, dwarfing the marina’s other inhabitants. A few weeks later I was joined by good friend Simon Bradshaw for a two-handed delivery down to Pittwater and all the joy of being properly at sea after many months of hard work in the shed.

I recently finished building the deck cabin, prefabricating parts onshore and piecing the cabin together with Gaiasdream still on her mooring. After slipping proved near impossible at any of Sydney or Pittwater’s yards, we took to the tidal sand flats in Morning Bay for her first maintenance below the waterline.