S/V Rutea Sails Around the World: Stuck In The Middle With.....

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Stuck In The Middle With.....

Well, we're not REALLY stuck, but we are having a hard time leaving! However, we ARE in the middle of nowhere, albeit the Coral Sea, with nothing around but shades of blue for hundreds of miles in any direction! We're here with three other boats (two of them are leaving today) and our snorkel gear, dive tanks, books, crosswords, boat projects (yes boat projects even out in the middle of nowhere) and our rapidly diminishing supply of fresh food!

Corie and Mark have been exploring and charting the lagoon by dinghy. They have discovered two thriving coral heads (bomies) about a hundred feet tall. Imagine a hundred foot wall of coral which sinks in to a midnight blue and rises to an aqua hue one foot below the surface of the water. Out of the midnight blue curious sharks swim upwards towards curious snorkelers (me) which then makes me feel less than curious and my heart goes pitter patter! Of course Corie and Mark see the sharks and free dive down forty feet to greet and photograph them and fortunately, that seems to make the sharks feel less than curious and they dart back down into the midnight blue! My area of preference for exploring is the coral surrounded by the aqua water near the surface which is spotlit by sunlight on coral exploding with all of the colors of the rainbow! Red, Orange, Purple, Violet, Green, Blue. It's like swimming over a flower garden in full bloom! There are sea fans, soft corals, hard corals, clams with luminous lips, fish with psychedelic patterns and, oh yeah.... snakes! I have never seen so many snakes on land as I saw in the water over this coral head which Mark named Romancing the Snake and Corie named Snake Charmer! There were long black snakes which slept curled up on the bottom and arose for a sip of air every so often, silver snakes which wound around coral pieces never seeming to need a sip of air and purple snakes which snaked in and out of coral holes and peered at us with small beady eyes. Snakes in the water on/in beautiful coral heads do not look any more cute or charming than snakes on land.

Today we will put two more coats of Teak Guard on the cap rail and hatch covers so we don't arrive in Oz looking like the Beverly Hillbillies. We will bid good-by to Dilligaf and our new Hungarian friends Nellie and Joseph on Epiphany and promise to rendezvous with them in Bundy. Then we await the arrival of our friends on Mystic who expect to arrive tonight, and we will try to guide them in to an anchoring spot after sundown (a real No-No)! Another snorkel and reef exploration or maybe another walk around the islet to photograph more boobies (you name it- red footed, blue footed, yellow footed) and we will unstick ourselves and prepare to leave here by Tuesday for a Friday arrival in Australia. Our weather window is good until the end of the week but I am going to prepare some passage meals just in case "they" didn't mention how rolly it is going to be out there. And then, Oz..... I guess we are off to see the wizard....

R of Rutea
19:52.96 South
158:27.87 East
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At 10/31/2012 9:02 PM (utc) Rutea's position was 19°52.96'S 158°27.87'E

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About Rutea

Rutea was built in 1984 by Conyplex in Mendemblik, Holland. A small brass plaque says that she's hull Number 9 but on the Conyplex website www.contestyachts.com there's no mention of them building that many. She's designed by Dick Zaal, who designed most of Conyplex's earlier boats. The brochure says that she's 48' overall with a 14'6" beam and she draws 6'. Her cast iron bolted-on fin keel weighs 12,000 pounds and she is supposed to displace slightly over 37,000 pounds but she's never been one to watch her weight and, ahem, she's gained more than a few pounds since we bought her in 1996. Her ketch rig sports Profurl furlers for the jib/genoa and the staysail. The main has a very tall aspect as does the mizzen. All of her winches are made by Enkes although I did add a Harken self-tailing for the main halyard. She uses an unusual reel winch that's equipped with Spectra rope for furling the genoa. There's a running backstay on the mizzen mast and there are no forward lowers on the main mast. The head stay is Dyform.

I replaced the original Volvo MD40A six-cylinder diesel with a Beta Marine 90 and I've been very happy with it although it puts out nowhere near 90 HP - probably 70 is more like it. Regardless, it's adequate and very economical on fuel. I also replaced the original Westerbeke 6kw genset with a single-cylinder Kubota diesel that drives a 150-amp alternator. Since we switched over to 12-volt refrigeration, we no longer have any 110-volt appliances on board, other than the water heater. Since the new Beta Marine engine has two big alternators (one is 100 amps and the other 175), we have our Victron inverter/charger power the water heater when we're under power (we don't have engine coolant circulate through the water heater).

Rutea's layout down below is different from many boats of her size. Aft of her water-tight forward bulkhead is a 'wet' head, complete with two sinks. Aft of that are two cabins, both with bunk beds on either side of the boat and each has a door to the forward head. This was perfect when we cruised with our family as our 3 children had their own quarters. The main saloon occupies the area aft of the forward cabins and her dinette and settees are large enough to seat 10 people (we've had many a memorable meal here!). Under the cabin sole are two 90-gallon stainless steel fuel tanks. Under the settee seats on either side is a 120-gallon water tank, also made of stainless steel. On the starboard side, aft of the dinette is the foward-facing nav station and on the port side is the galley where we have a 7 cubic foot refrigerator and a 5 cubic foot freezer. Aft of the nav station, on the starboard side is my work shop. This was originally designed to be another stateroom but the original owner had Conyplex convert it into a work shop, complete with a heavy-duty work bench and a massive 6" vise. I sometimes spend days at a time in there. Many a visiting cruiser has eyed with envy, drooled with desire and blatantly coveted my work shop! I have access to the engines from there. On the port side, aft of the galley, is another 'wet' head. Aft of that is the aft cabin, which has a settee as well as a full double-size berth. Aft of the aft cabin or 'owner's stateroom' as it's called on many boats, is her spacious lazarette, which is where the water heater and diesel-fired boiler are located. Bolted to the back of the aft deck and overhanging the transom are her Simpson davits (I sometimes tell people that the boat was built around those davits - they're very substantial with a capacity of 250 Kgs). Resting on top of the davits are Ruthie's roto-molded kayak and above that are two 215-watt solar panels. Hanging off the davits is our Aqua Pro dinghy and it's 15-horsepower Honda outboard.

On deck, starting at the bow, is Rutea's primary anchor, a Bruce 30 kilogram that's connected to the 350' of 3/8" Hi-Test chain with a Wasi Powerball. The anchor and chain are deployed and retrieved by a Lofrans Progress II windlass. In the anchor locker lives another Bruce 20kg anchor that's connected to 50' of 3/8" Hi-Test chain and 150' of 1" MegaBraid rope. Also in the anchor locker, amongst many other things, is the 18' Para-Tech sea anchor with it's dedicated 100' of 1" single-braid rope. Moving aft is Rutea's main mast, which has double spreaders, four Enkes winches and one Harken self-tailing winch. The mast is made by Selden as are the two heavy spinnaker poles. The tracks for the staysail and the genoa are stainless steel. In the cockpit are five more Enke winches and a Harken mechanical backstay adjuster. The mizzen mast is also quite substantial and has three Enkes winches on it. The turning blocks are stainless steel. The steering system on Rutea is the Whitlock Mamba system using a torque tube and a push-pull rod. The compass in the binnacle is made by Sestrel.

Even though we try to keep up on Rutea's appearance, she's still starting to show her age. I replaced her portlights (all twelve of them) and Ruthie has taken over the job of varnishing her brightwork. In 2000 we removed her teak decks and replaced it with painted fiberglass. Much less maintenance! She's what I call a 200-foot boat: She looks great from 200 feet!

Regardless, the best part of Rutea is the way she handles. While she's not the fastest filly in the fleet, she can cover a respectable amount of distance in a day. Her sail plan allows her to be easily balanced to the point where the autopilot has very little correcting to do. Her sails are all made by North except her spinnakers are Dutch-made.

Rutea’s electronics package includes radar, chartplotter, AIS, sounder and sailing instruments - all made by Garmin. Her radios are all old but they work well. Her Icom M802 SSB has been modified to use ham frequencies.