Manie's Microcruiser

Hope to see you soon... My "home port may be "Gove" on the left side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia...

 

manie
looking lekker cant wait to see it on the water

 

You mean WITHOUT the bikini's.

Looking nice so far Manie. Let me know what's what, would like to take a spin with you - that said, as long as I don't have to wear a bikini.

I'm back, will work on those other things this coming week, will let you know.



PS - I came back last night and it's **** here in Pretoria. It's piss cold and there's no bloody water here

 

Fanie we haven't had internet for the past week either - seacom cables down, only local sites.
I hope you guys actually caught some fish?

 

Hi Manie, I plan to put up a page on the week's activities. It wasn't a real fishing trip although I did get some small fish. I went with a customer who has a place there on lake Bilene, I just went along for the company while he worked. The lake is 27km long, and at least there is water in it, with an exit to sea.

Haven't explored everything there, a week is too short, but it was a pleasant experience except that I lost my veteran fishing hat to the sea. I waded through the front trough onto a sand bank to get to some deeper water where I saw some nice fish jump and everything went ok untill a freak wave whacked me head over heels. It's been a while since I was upside down like that Usually one knows where your arms, legs and butt is, but for a bit there I wasn't sure.

I ask myself more and more wtf are we doing so far from water. Every second philamon there has a boat, and here we sit in the friggin dust.

 

Well chaps here is an update of whats going on with my build (more pics on the blog)

I am now at very very scary 400 build hours in the past year.
You can double that with planning the next steps - and running around getting materials.
So when the chaps that sell boat plans make all these marvelous claims of how quickly it is to build a boat - i have my doubts and serious reservations.

 

Oh, it's not impossible to get a boat done "on schedule" per the original time estimate. All you need is an army of tradespeople ready to jump into action at five minutes' notice, an on-site stockpile of every piece of wood, metal and hardware you could possibly need, and the ability to cut, hammer and weld at kung-fu speed.

Seriously, Manie, she's lookin' pretty nice.....

 

It is looking good, Manie.

 

Looking awesome...

only a (very small) concern. Expansion and contraction of the air in the bottles may end up fragmenting the foam around the bottles and letting them start moving round slightly. UNLESS you stuck them in the freezer prior to closing them up and let them expand to room temp. A little trick I learned and somehow never forgot. It would have to get to below the original temp in the freezer before there would be any significant contraction of the bottle and subsequent deformation. Then again...the foam around it might insulate it from any major temperature fluctuations and there is no cause for concern at all. You probably don't have the temperature variations that I have during the year either.

 

Get a move on there Manie, lets go sailing before we hit our 80's, shall we

 

So Fanie, How is your effort progressing? mine is getting closer and closer to launch date - I can taste the salt air......

 

Hello Masalai,

I actually feel guilty, promissed myself to drop you a line and each time something headed me off.

Re my build. I'm working my butt of and can't wear any underpants as a result Decided to get out of the backyard mechanic metality of building the boat in the yard. Putting up a building for it. I have to move a beeg figgin chunk of earth, almost done. Then foundations and then build.

It's pretty useless having the tools and not being able to use them because there is not space enough for them to work in Target date to have the building up is before this coming winter. The hulls are being done then. Our economy is also a bit ****** up since the soccer fiasco, very slow. Dunno how Manie is doing.

 

Nasty bugger, I'm sure it's almost ready. Very happy for you, and I'm sure we'll still see plenty of the boat (and you).

Now you only have to learn to fish eh

 

I use the "unsportsmanlike methods" 100kg breaking strain line to a winch/wench or both, or fertiliser and diesel in a "sealed container" connected to a suitable detonator - but the latter is too indiscriminate and wasteful, (and mostly illegal), so lets just use the former and aim for the 20kg tuna every so often with minimal effort to get plenty of "fish steak" meals into the freezer....

 

If you look at the salties hands using hand lines - there's always a submarine cruising below somewhere that will take you and your 100kg line offen your boat