G’day PUFFIN!
Puffin arrived in Australia last week! Robin, Gavin and I went down to Newcastle to take delivery of her as she came off the ship. The lift down from the deck of Happy Delta went smoothly and her engines started right up when the lifting slings were removed from underneath.
Unloading Puffin from the Sevenstar ship, Happy Delta, in Newcastle, Australia
We motored her over to the nearby marina and waited for the quarantine officers to inspect for bugs!
We had our YB3i satellite tracker running on PUFFIN throughout the voyage, so we received position updates every 4 hours.
The quarantine inspection went fine, no Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs on board and the Australian agents were friendly and professional. Once we were given a clean bill of health by quarantine (and after a celebratory beer!) we could get to work with re-rigging and cleaning. The boat was undamaged from the voyage but very dirty. The protective wax that Kirk and I put on in Genoa worked very well and she looked like new again after the cleaning was done.
We went out for a test sail on the weekend and everything worked fine. I made a mistake with the routing of the leech reef lines, so I have to fix that as soon as I can hoist the mainsail when there is no wind. It’s not a big issue, but it means we can’t fully reef until I fix it.
First sail in Australian waters
Puffin will be in Newcastle for just a bit longer until Lindsay finishes her end of school year exams, and then we will be sailing her up the coast to Brisbane.
Sail Puffin 
Congratulations and happy voyaging…
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Congrats Doug,
Looking very smart. Keen to see her in Moreton Bay.
Cheers!
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Congratulations, fair winds and thank you for writing about your beautiful Puffin.
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Looking forward to your next blogs, ours due mid Feb and we have taken lots of your ideas, thanks Stuart
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Can you say something about the storage on the 4X and its ability as liveaboard? Would you recommend it to a couple that plans to travel the oceans for a few years? I know Vagabond does that but they also don’t have a washing machine which I would want.
I looking at the O45 and O51 right now and wonder if O45 would be enough space.
How is the smaller galley compared to your 5X, is it fine on daily basis or a big change?
You mentioned that you didn’t go for a rotating mast because of the yearly maintance that is required where the mast needs to be taken down. There are 2 O45 on the market with rotating carbon mast right now and I wonder if would be ok to avoid the maintance by never rotating it and always keeping it in one position. Is that a viable option you think?
thanks,
Alex
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Hi Alex,
The 4X/45 is smaller with less storage than our 5X, so we needed to answer this question as well before buying. Our plan is to spend several years cruising the South Pacific, so we needed Puffin to be comfortable for a long term liveaboard couple. After using the boat, we’re very happy with the storage and configuration of our 4X and have no concerns. The galley is perfectly fine, and we don’t really notice any difference to the 5X in terms of space and function. We don’t have a clothes washer but there are some O45s that do. I would advise against a generator though, which unfortunately is often added along with the clothes washer to handle the extra electrical load and the extra water you will have to make to run the washer. Without a generator you will probably have to run the engines a bit more to keep your batteries topped up though.
The main reason I chose a fixed mast was so I could run the main halyard and leech reefing lines back to clutches at the helm station. This allows us to raise and lower the mainsail and reef from the helm singlehanded which is not possible with a rotating mast. This is how Riley uses his boat also if you watch any of his sailing videos. You could block a rotating mast fixed and do the same and it should work fine as well.
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