Lookfar's sailing trip up the Tapuwae River January 2014

View up the Tapuwae river from Lookfar.

[Creator unknown] :Plan of Motukaraka Hokianga surveyed for Capt. McDonnel[l] [ms map]. [184-?]

Reference Number: MapColl-832.11a/[184-?]/Acc.1780

Shows survey of land of Motukaraka Island, Hokianga Harbour, adjoined by the Motu Karaka and the Waimanga Creeks. Map shows position of old Maori pa site as well as mangrove trees and high water mark.

This image reveals the same Island viewed from the south. The Pa is located at the one o'clock position in the photo, identifiable by the dark patch of large trees amidst the mangroves. The Tapuwae river reaches off to the left in the distance.

View from a headland, Tapuwae River, Hokianga, Northland, New Zealand

A view from our home shows the headland from where I took the above photo of Motukaraka Island, the mangrove fringe is actually the Island which is separated by a navigable channel leading into the Tapuwae River.

Lookfar brings me safely home. The Tapuwae, Motukaraka and the pa can be seen in the background of this image. Photo by Julie Holton.

An exceptionally fair wind and tide combination prompted me to make a spontaneous trip in Lookfar up the river opposite our home across the Hokianga Harbour. The incoming tide carried us as far up river as it was possible to sail. The trip took me a total distance of 15 KM. there and back. This was among the most enjoyable of my trips to date. During the course of the day the 10-12 knot breeze steadily changed to a point where I was on the same tack coming home as I was when I left in the morning!

Lookfar makes a summer trip

 A 3 meter high tide at 4 pm, a moderate southwesterly breeze, two more days of a three week family holiday left, time to go yachting.

I set off straight down the harbour from our waterside home on port tack into a rising 15 knot breeze. Bright sunshine sparkling off a short sharp chop with spray flicking over the windward rail. I love this little sailboat!

We sailed into the narrows between towering tree covered headlands, the wind funneling through, threatening to knock us over, I enjoy these conditions, reading the traces the wind leaves on the water so you can react in time with the sheet or the helm, deflecting the excess power, surging forward over a brisk incoming current.

Ease sheet, reach for an apple, a swig of water, my cell phone, snap some pictures fore and aft, sheet home, surge forward again.

View from Lookfar back toward Rawene. Our home is at the far left of the houses spread over the low point in the distance.

View forward from Lookfar toward the harbour mouth.

With the wind still rising I decided to go ashore at an appealing spot where native trees spill down and blend  with mangroves on the shore line. Two black back gulls circle with threatening calls and gestures, this is their place not mine.
Large concretions, spherical boulders line the beach like forgotten, over sized cannon balls.

Top the mainsail and tie off Lookfar on a mangrove sapling.

Lookfar tied off to a mangrove sapling, sail braided up.

Lookfar and native bush backdrop.

I stretch out in the semi shade of a large puriri tree and take in the beauty of my surroundings. Snap a couple of pics of the canoe, finish a chocolate bar.

I promised Julie I would return at the top of the tide in time for her swim. Julie is responsible for these pictures of our return 2 hour later. Fantastic little outing!

Lookfar on a broad reach for home

Nearly there, spill some wind.

Ease myself out.

Time to pack up.

Lookfar's Easter cruise

Taking advantage of some fine warm and settled weather I've taken Lookfar for several more outings. On my hand line I've caught several nice snapper for our dinner and netted 3 stingray so far, within sight of our house. Julie and I released the two larger rays (the largest at close to 2 meters in width) and kept a smaller one that became hopelessly tangled by its tail in our net.

Today and yesterday I sailed out into the harbour on a very light breeze to have it fill in both days to a nice 15 - 20 knot sea breeze over the space of a couple of hours.

The tide is at its mid day highest at the moment with 3.7 meters being the peak on the full moon. Ideal for an extended trip, exploring the tidal river estuaries close to our home. This time my destination was the Omania river entrance. I trolled a lure on both occasions though so far no strikes. I'm targeting Kahawai, a pelagic fish, similar to salmon in general proportion. These fish are common in our waters, they pursue the yellow eye and grey mullet that team in our waters. I stopped on an uninhabited stretch of coast where an inviting and very ancient Puriri (A variety of Teak) tree hangs out over the water.

I ate an apple, drank some water and watched a cluster of snow white, royal spoon bills precariously perched in a mangrove thicket, waiting out the high tide for another wading forage through the mudflat margins of the upper harbour. Interestingly the tree has some of it's tangled and gnarled root system exposed on the bank at the waters edge. There is an enormous deposit of cockle and oyster shells among layered blackened remains of hundreds of cooking fires and hammer stones. Generations of people have been attracted to this place, this tree, as I have.

















Here we are returning home on a stiffening south westerly breeze running flat off the wind. I'm grateful to Julie who looks out for me and thinks about thinks like taking pictures.

I know that this image is somewhat like an earlier one, the difference now is that I have a very functional rudder which makes down wind control so much easier.

I'm finding that the canoe rides easier flat down wind with a lee board down as the narrow hull is prone to setting up a nasty oscillating roll in some sea states.

I'm finding the size and handiness of this little boat suits me and our location almost perfectly. Lookfar sails so well that I can't think of any way to improve it.

Comparing this little boat to others that I have owned, I find myself visualising previous trips in various other small sail boats, stretched out in the bottom, amidships, main sheet in one hand, tiller in the other, head and shoulders just protruding above the gunwale. Although this little boat has a miniscule rig compared to a Finn or an OK dinghy, the sensation of stealth and efficiency is no different. Lookfar is certainly very quick for its size, both upwind and down. I'm most mindful that I'm sailing in a tiny viking long ship.

Harmen.
Easter 2012

Lookfar takes me on our first voyage.

This morning I made up a couple of trolling lines with two different lures with the intention to try my luck at fishing whilst sailing over to Motukaraka Island.

From our house we look out to a headland promontory which was a Maori, fortified Pa site in days gone by. The fact that this was once so is clearly evident when you walk up to the knoll on the ridge of the headland. There is evidence of dwelling and storage pits and palisade levels as well. It is at once clear why such a site would be inhabited by Maori in pre-European times. The views are unbroken for 360 degrees which means that you can see anyone approaching from any direction. The proximity to exceptional fishing grounds at the mouth of a significant tributary to the harbour makes the site absolutely perfect for supporting a reasonably sized population, worth defending.

View from our home in Rawene

At the foot of this steep, grass covered headland is a long mangrove covered island called Motukaraka. (Karaka is a species of native tree with large, glossy, dark green
leaves and large oval berries that are a brilliant orange when ripe. These trees thrive in coastal, subtropical Northland. Motu means Island in the Maori language).

Since Julie and I bought this property over 3 years ago, I have longed to sail over and explore this inaccessible region of the Hokianga Harbour's northern coastline, so clearly visible from our house.

The tide is full at midday on a full moon so, with an extra high tide on the ebb, a great sailing forecast, Westerly, 10-15 knots and everything prepared, I slipped Lookfar into the water at 11.30 am and set off. (My survival kit includes a water bottle, a knife, spare rope, food, and cell phone carefully sealed in a zip lock bag and a snap lid plastic container all loaded in a plastic pail which doubles as a bailer).

It was one easy beat with the 10 knot westerly wind on the port bow laying the mouth of the Tapuwai river where Motukaraka island lies.

The scenery is spectacular with virgin native rain forest reaching down to the coast in many places, interspersed with the green clearings of old settlements and farms visible along the shore. My layline points to the beautiful red and white, native timber church of "Our Lady of the Assumption" with its polished silver steeple that proudly presides over the tiny settlement of Motukaraka.

(Please see the previous post for images of the church and the farm house I mention here)

Passing the settlement close by I sailed on the incoming tide right into the Tapuwai river mouth with Motukaraka island passing on my port hand side.

Once into the inlet proper with a beam wind, we sailed on to the cemetery, attracted by the huge white, wooden cross on the western bank of the Tapuwai river. (Tapuwai means sacred water in the Maori language. I may yet find a link between the name and the cross).

I was determined to navigate the narrow channel between the headland and Motukaraka island. The tide was still on the rise as we made our way on starboard tack into the narrow channel.

















This close to the mangroves with our tiny Optimist rig the wind was very fluky indeed so, as a result, there was much tacking from one mangrove covered shore to the other. Eventually we rounded the gentle bend in the channel heading now in a southerly direction with the wind on our starboard beam. I was heading for the landing of an old colonial farmhouse, which is also visible from our house. I pulled Lookfar high up the gentle clay incline and dropped the sail.




















I retrieved my food, water and cellphone and made my way up the track to the old dilapidated farm house. From there I climbed the steep grassy slope to the crest of the Pa site I mentioned earlier.

What a sensational view!
















Looking west towards the harbour mouth.
















South west.
















South.
















South east.
















East, south east
















East: Exactly the same view as ours only in reverse. For the first time I was able to see back toward our home (on the middle ground peninsular of Rawene below the prominent hump on the skyline to the right of this image).
I called Julie on my phone and asked her to look my way through her binoculars. Yes she could see me waving my hat, through the clear air, over several kilometers.
















North east.

It is a wonderful feeling to be able to cobble together a tiny sail boat and make a trip like this. I find it very satisfying. I return to an earlier, much simpler time in my life when trips like these were the norm for me.

I had intended for Toroa to fill this role but since my illness I've lost some of the energy and physicality needed to keep and handle such a vessel.

Down the grassy ridge and back to Lookfar before the sea breeze comes in and the tide begins to flood. 20 knots of wind against a 4 knot tide makes for a choppy and uncomfortable ride in a small boat.

















Lookfar, homeward bound.
Photo by Julie Holton

















Lookfar, almost home: Photo by Julie Holton


I can lift Lookfar bodily out of the water and haul her easily up the grassy bank at home.
As for fishing? Well I had my hands full on the return trip so I left my lines for another day.

I think I will construct a small canoe stern rudder to keep us on track down wind, the paddle is OK but does require some muscle to keep on course in the puffs.

"Lookfar" A converted Coleman Ram X 15 Canoe

Today I launched my little sailing canoe.

I called my canoe "Lookfar" after the wizard Sparrowhawk's sail boat in Ursula LeGuinn's wonderful trilogy "A Wizard of Earth Sea"

I spent yesterday assembling my collection of bits and pieces and this is the result.

The Optimist sail and rig was retired from the learn to sail fleet here in Rawene when my son donated new sails last season.

Paul Bowker kindly gave me the old items. I took them home, washed the sail and set to with a needle and polyester thread to repair the loose seems and batten pockets.

I needed to run a cord into the luff tabling pockets as the brass rings had corroded away. The tack, clew and peak rings I reinforced with monofilament nylon line using a rolling blanket stitch.

I built a mast step cradle for the canoe from triangles of plywood glued to a base block of cedar. I drilled a hole through the block for the mast step and capped the base with an aluminium plate.

To fit the mast cradle into the canoe I removed the front seat, a molded plastic panel, to reveal the two tubular cross thwart frames.

I fitted the cradle in between the two tubes and rested the base block on the keelson.
I then replaced the seat panel and refitted it through its original fixing holes with long stainless screws securing both the seat and the mast cradle together into position. For extra strength I lashed the four corners of my new cradle to the thwart tubes and to the tubular keelson.

I chose a point behind the midship thwart on the keelson to attach the two parts of the main sheet.

For lee boards I modified the old ogive section blades that I kept from Toroa's earlier incarnation.

These were perfectly suited to being cut down and bolted through the gunwale with stainless steel threaded rod, nuts and washers. I pinched the bolts up tight which allowed for rotation of the pivot with enough friction to hold them in any position I
choose.

Here's the result.
















Prior to lee board attachment.




















Lawn sailing.
















Launch site is the little beach at the bottom of our property
















I wonder how it will sail?
















Lee board down, sheet in, Hmm not bad!
















Steering paddle is restrained midway down the shaft with a measured length of cord attached to the keelson tube behind my sitting position. I can toss the paddle from side to side and it just sits there waiting for me to grasp it.




































Ease sheet, very responsive.
















Into 6 knots of breeze from the North East
















Bye bye.
















Time to come back and reassure Julie.
















I look cool sailing along. Look ma no hands! Actually I can sail this thing without a rudder just shift my weight and or the lee board position forward or aft to alter course, butt steering still rules, Sweet.




















Still looking cool.
















Coming in to land.




















Easy peasy. Even the birds like it, I'm a bird magnet!

All photos by Julie Holton.

If you want a selection of solutions for your canoe conversion then here's a great web page on the subject.