I plan to progress to a TS but for now I'm thinking of starting my sailing career at the beginning with something small. My question for anyone with experience of Moreton Bay is, what's the smallest boat I need to sail around the bay, maybe as far as Moreton Island but not going ocean-side? I'm wondering whether I could do it in dinghy or a Hoby cat. Thanks!

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TwoSheets said..
I plan to progress to a TS but for now I'm thinking of starting my sailing career at the beginning with something small. My question for anyone with experience of Moreton Bay is, what's the smallest boat I need to sail around the bay, maybe as far as Moreton Island but not going ocean-side? I'm wondering whether I could do it in dinghy or a Hoby cat. Thanks!

On a good day you could do it on a hobie cat. There's a few videos on YouTube

No off the beach dinghies or catamarans are suitable for cruising the northern end of Moreton Bay. There are a couple of ways to get into sailing. If you want to you want to start in a dinghy or catamaran I would head down to a local sailing club, example Humpybong and talk to them and see what classes of boats they are sailing. You will learn to sail correctly, a lot faster and meet a lot of helpful people by sailing with a club.
Another way to learn is go to the local yacht club and get a position crewing on a yacht. There are always boats looking for crew or prepared to take an extra person. By doing this you will gain experience as well as getting an indication of what type of boat you might want to buy. Crewing on someone else's boat is by far the cheapest way to get into sailing. There are Yacht club at Manly eg. RQYS and Wynnum Manly Yacht Club and at Redcliffe eg Moreton Bay Boat Club and Newport Cruising Yacht Club.

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Shanty1 said..

TwoSheets said..
I plan to progress to a TS but for now I'm thinking of starting my sailing career at the beginning with something small. My question for anyone with experience of Moreton Bay is, what's the smallest boat I need to sail around the bay, maybe as far as Moreton Island but not going ocean-side? I'm wondering whether I could do it in dinghy or a Hoby cat. Thanks!

On a good day you could do it on a hobie cat. There's a few videos on YouTube

I would regard myself as a very experienced catamaran sailor and I would not sail to Moreton Island unless you were with at least 4 or 5 other boats and even a pick up boat. Apart from capsize, catamarans are quit prone to breakages especially non racing poorly maintained boats. I have done it as an adventure with other experienced boats but it is not something you would do regularly. I can assure you any experienced racing catamaran sailors will advise an inexperienced sailor against it. Just ask Marine Rescue how many off the beach cats they have had to go and retrieve.
There are a lot of very experienced sailors on this site that you can take advice from and some maybe not. Like all social media choose your advice carefully.

^^^^ Right on the money. Off the beach catermarans require that you have considerable athletic capabilities, especially when they capsize which they will do in the wink of an eye.

Righting them is not an easy task.

G'day Twosheets,
Jode's speaking from experience, not much needed to add!
On a good fishing day it can be a pane of glass, and you'll have SUP's toodling around Green Island, those days you could sail a bathtub around the bay.
On a good sailing day it can get a bit tough for short waterline lengths, where the shallow water and opposing tides produces a short steep swell. the more open parts of the bay the worse it gets. The tides accelerate around the West/East of the islands causing a bit more standing up in certain spots.
On bad days, the transom hung outboard on my old TS was near useless, had to get rescued by VMR one day after losing a main halyard and not being able to drive off the shore in 35 knots due to heel and nasty wave action.
Would be fun to do on a light air day, and no fun at all in medium to heavy airs.
As an alternate, have you thought about lake sailing if you're keen on dinghy and beach cats? ? Lake Samsonvale have a great spot for sailing and a great little club, I sailed there for years as a kid, loved it.
lswsa.org.au/location/
Cheers,
SB

its doable as long as your sensible this photo taken sailing my 10 footer from sandgate to scarbourgh and back in 10 to 15 something like a corsair would be quite doable but small steps first would be wise

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cisco said..
^^^^ Right on the money. Off the beach catermarans require that you have considerable athletic capabilities, especially when they capsize which they will do in the wink of an eye.

Righting them is not an easy task.

Thank goodness that bottles of red now have screw caps

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Jode5 said..

Shanty1 said..

TwoSheets said..
I plan to progress to a TS but for now I'm thinking of starting my sailing career at the beginning with something small. My question for anyone with experience of Moreton Bay is, what's the smallest boat I need to sail around the bay, maybe as far as Moreton Island but not going ocean-side? I'm wondering whether I could do it in dinghy or a Hoby cat. Thanks!

On a good day you could do it on a hobie cat. There's a few videos on YouTube

I would regard myself as a very experienced catamaran sailor and I would not sail to Moreton Island unless you were with at least 4 or 5 other boats and even a pick up boat. Apart from capsize, catamarans are quit prone to breakages especially non racing poorly maintained boats. I have done it as an adventure with other experienced boats but it is not something you would do regularly. I can assure you any experienced racing catamaran sailors will advise an inexperienced sailor against it. Just ask Marine Rescue how many off the beach cats they have had to go and retrieve.
There are a lot of very experienced sailors on this site that you can take advice from and some maybe not. Like all social media choose your advice carefully.

I know what you mean, but I have seen heaps of hobies and the like at Moreton before especially the "sand hills". With little wind the water will be flat. As long as you plan your trip with the weather I still think you would be fine ( of course if you knew what you were doing).

Well I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the comments that a beach cat isn't suitable for Moreton Bay. I have sailed my Hobie 16 on Moreton Bay for 4 years now (that's my boat in the Youtube video above) and there is nothing the Bay has thrown at me that we couldn't handle and get back home through, even beating back to Raby Bay from Dunwich into a 30-35 knot Westerly with full sail on one occasion. What a ride that was!

There is no reason to say at catamaran is prone to breakages if it is kept in decent condition, the same as any boat. The capsize issue is also a non-issue as contrary to popular belief a well setup and looked after beach cat is not difficult to right after a capsize. I will have capsized hundreds of time (I kind of have a reputation for it) and not once have I broken anything on the boat.

I can't count how many camping trips we have made over to Moreton Island carrying all our gear on the tramp, our favourite camping spot is Shark Spit but Tangalooma Point is also nice. Never felt the need to have a power boat to follow along behind me to make sure I'm OK.

I've just got back from a 10 day trip in April from Mackay out to Scawfell Island then onto Goldsmith Island and onto Haslewood Island before finishing in Airlie Beach sailing my Hobie 16. 515 km was the total distance we sailed, much of it fully loaded with our camping gear and food. I think we had one day that was under 20 knots.... The Hobie 16 handled the conditions brilliantly. Surfing 3+ metre waves into Solway Passage whilst overtaking two 50 foot monohulls and a 40 foot catamaran who were motoring!!! was a memorable experience.

I say go for it, get a beach cat and enjoy the wonderful waters of Moreton Bay. That's exactly what I did 4 years ago and I'll never look back. Start small, build experience, look after your cat and she will look after you!

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dave202 said..
Well I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the comments that a beach cat isn't suitable for Moreton Bay. I have sailed my Hobie 16 on Moreton Bay for 4 years now (that's my boat in the Youtube video above) and there is nothing the Bay has thrown at me that we couldn't handle and get back home through, even beating back to Raby Bay from Dunwich into a 30-35 knot Westerly with full sail on one occasion. What a ride that was!

There is no reason to say at catamaran is prone to breakages if it is kept in decent condition, the same as any boat. The capsize issue is also a non-issue as contrary to popular belief a well setup and looked after beach cat is not difficult to right after a capsize. I will have capsized hundreds of time (I kind of have a reputation for it) and not once have I broken anything on the boat.

I can't count how many camping trips we have made over to Moreton Island carrying all our gear on the tramp, our favourite camping spot is Shark Spit but Tangalooma Point is also nice. Never felt the need to have a power boat to follow along behind me to make sure I'm OK.

I've just got back from a 10 day trip in April from Mackay out to Scawfell Island then onto Goldsmith Island and onto Haslewood Island before finishing in Airlie Beach sailing my Hobie 16. 515 km was the total distance we sailed, much of it fully loaded with our camping gear and food. I think we had one day that was under 20 knots.... The Hobie 16 handled the conditions brilliantly. Surfing 3+ metre waves into Solway Passage whilst overtaking two 50 foot monohulls and a 40 foot catamaran who were motoring!!! was a memorable experience.

I say go for it, get a beach cat and enjoy the wonderful waters of Moreton Bay. That's exactly what I did 4 years ago and I'll never look back. Start small, build experience, look after your cat and she will look after you!

First of all, nice videos second of all that's what I was thinking about the weather. I mean up at Moreton you are starting to push it in 20 knots. ( unless your an experienced cat sailor ) That's when the vmr would be starting to get involved.

Corsair is very good choice, good storage, can carry weight and you can set up a reefing system on the mainsail.
Cockpit seats are big enough to sleep on
y 20 cents

The first time I sailed to Moreton Island was in 1969 on a Mirror 16 with Dad and my brothers. Dad built the boat with a tiny bit of help from us boys. We did quite a few trips with the Trailersailer club back then. The sand hills were our go to destination though because we could sand sled.

We would sail the 16 and a Lazy E to the sand hills for school holidays through the 70's and camp for two weeks at a time. It is still one of my favorite destinations. We did have had two 10'10'' Mirrors come on one occasion, one boat was sailed by the then Australian champion. There was a photo somewhere at home of five Mirror sixteens on the beach in front of the big sand hills on one of the trips.

If there was no wind we would paddle and our slowest trip took 8 hours on a glassed out day.

In September 1974 we left the sand hills for Sandgate as the tide filled in over the banks. It was around 8 am on a Sunday morning in the Lazy E. My eldest brother and some of his school mates stayed on the Island with the Mirror 16. The morning was almost without breeze so we paddled away from the Island into a glassed out bay. At around 11 am we got hammered by a westerly front that came out of clear air. 30 knots plus, I have never since seen mainsail battens with a wave pattern in them like the pattern I watched the main flick around in the gusts. The corsair that left with us broke a jib halyard and headed back to the Island. On starboard we could lay the Redcliffe hospital tower but that heading was directly into the seas that had built quickly to a size that would break completely over the boat. We tacked onto port and sailed over into the lee of Mud Island to get out of the worst of it. The E wasn't self bailing so keeping the water out was a bit of a priority. My brother who was on the wire would get a static belt every time he grabbed the aluminium handle on the trap wire. We pulled into the boat ramp in Cabbage tree creek at 7:40 pm. I cant recall ever being so cold and tired after a dinghy sail. Mum was there with the Air sea rescue guys blinding with car headlights us as we dropped the main and put the boat on the trailer, they wouldn't have had a hope in finding us if we had had a failure.

Would I buy a dinghy and head for Moreton? No. Would I buy a cat and head across the bay? An even bigger no. Learn as much as you can about sailing a small boat first. A cat is too inherently stable to learn on. Learn in a boat that will capsize if you get it wrong.

There are some nice places to cruise a small boat further south in the bay. For me after years of racing I still get the biggest kick out of using a sailing boat as a vehicle to go some where. With experience and best with another boat or two head off for sure.

Dad drilled us that it was up to us and us alone, don't expect help, if you got yourself out there its up to you to get yourself home. I'd recommend you take the same advice.