News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 66
The ship Notorious is back in Hervey Bay and she always draws a lot of interest. Moored at the Boat Clubs dock, she is paying a visit for a couple of weeks. Notorious, was researched, designed and constructed single-handedly by amateur boat builder Graeme Wylie at Bushfield, Victoria, Australia.
Launched in 2011.She is a full-size, wooden, sailing re-creation of a Portuguese caravel. Constructed from Monterey Cypress saved from the bonfires on south-west Victorian farms, her length is 17.5m, Beam 5.5m with a Draught of 2.1m.
Her ballast is 12 tonnes of bluestone with a displacement of 58 tonnes.
The Lateen Rig, borrowed from the Arab Dhow, improved windward sailing and is more easily handled by a small crew.
Steered by an upright tiller extension called a Whipstaff as steering wheels had not been invented at that time. These ships were used by European explorers to discover a route to plunder the riches of the east.
Caravels were favoured by pirates for their speed agility and large holds.She is currently the only sailing caravel in the Southern Hemisphere.
One would wonder looking at her how she floats let alone handles in big seas but the crew assure me that she handles very well.
She always creates plenty of excitement when shes in town…..well the Bay.
Early last week my daughter sent me a copy of an email she had received at work telling her she had been nominated for the 2019 QPS Women in Policing awards.
She said she was shocked and surprised and wondered why on earth someone would do that. (She actually thought it was a joke to start with!).
She had been nominated by her Assistant Commissioner/Executive Director. I could think of many reasons she couldve been nominated for as her dedication and commitment to her job is impeccable.
One of her bosses later said to her attention to detail and commitment got you that nomination, well done !
The awards were announced on 8th March, which is International Womens Day. I told her regardless of whether she won or not, what a wonderful honour to be nominated in recognition of her work.
I am so very very proud of her and all shes achieved in the last 8yrs since she graduated.
One more course to go till she makes Detective and she is already excelling in the detective aspects of her job.
She didnt win but makes no difference….she will always be my top cop.
The night we managed to black out the entire neighbourhood!The other week when we had all the gale force winds, hubby had walked up to check the mail box when he noticed a big branch over the powerlines at the front of our property.
It was strung up over 3 lines but didnt appear to be arcing out. Surprisingly the power didnt go out when it landed. We rang the energy company to report it and they sent a crew out.
It was daylight when we saw and reported it but by the time the crew arrived it was dark and as the branch moved with the wind we could see it arcing as it touched a line.
Very lucky that it wasnt actually throwing sparks on the ground. If it had it couldve blown them into extremely dry grass and started a fire.
When the crew arrived they had to call for the cherry picker as they couldnt get it off live wires with the smaller truck they had.
This meant that they had to switch the power off to all of our area to be able to get the picker up and for the crew to be safe.
Once the branch was down it was obvious by the burn marks on the branch in several places that we were very lucky there wasnt a fire.
The area was blacked out for about 15 mins while they did the work. We can laugh about it now that we shut down a whole suburb but it was better than had a fire started.
We get all sorts of wildlife visiting at night time from the kangaroos, possums, owls, heaps of geckos, green frogs and suspect there is a koala or two as we can hear the grunts but one of my favourites is the praying mantiss that seem to like resting on our front screen door.
The other night this little mantis was there and I always get them to climb on my hand. This little fellow was a bit different to the usual green and brown ones we see and although the picture doesnt really show its true colour it was more white than anything.
It was out front until we went to bed, and I was a bit worried because the geckos usually will try and grab them and have a good feed.
This one was still there in the morning but had moved down to the holder that I put the citronella sticks in.
It hung around all day, with several more nurses on my hand and again was there when I went to bed that night.
By the next morning he had gone. Quite unusual to see them stick around so long as they either get eaten or fly off over night. How cute is it? I love these little fellows….do you?
Well last week I spoke about the flooding in NQ and how Mother Nature is playing games here in Australia.
Well on the same day a couple of weeks ago while the North Queensland (NQ) floods were devastating the region, we had snow in Tasmania, massive fires in New South Wales (NSW), drought in Central Queenslands west and massive dust storms in Sydney NSW.
NQ had 2 metres of rain, before it passed the area and went out to the east into the Coral Sea.
The same monsoon went to the east as far as Fiji where it formed into a cyclone that was named TC Oma.
Oma then decided to move back to the east and gave New Caledonia a really hard time. It was believed that once it moved past New Caledonia it would turn south and travel off toward New Zealand (an area that is known as the grave yard for cyclones just north of actually hitting NZ as the cooler waters couldnt sustain the weather system).
Well a week and a half later Oma is still playing games. It didnt move south instead took a south westerly direction and is now keeping the Bureau of Meteorology working overtime to try and figure out just what its going to do!
As I write this, we are under a severe weather alert for winds and wild seas (along with a king tide) along the coast around Fraser Island.
There has been much speculation if it will cross the coast and if it is where it will cross. Then again maybe it will hook back up the north and travel along the coast.
Cyclones need warm waters to keep them going and it is not uncommon for them to come this far south, but usually they tend to stay and cross the coast further north in the warm water.
We do however feel the effects (being on the southern side) of any further north. So for now, we start making preparations just in case it does cross around here although we will get the rain and wind even if it doesnt cross the coast.
As I write this we have just got our first Tropical Cyclone Alert!