Waltzing Matilda is a Foulmouth Gypsy

I have learned a lot on this voyage, little things like how to sail, to important things, like how to call the Coast Guard for help. One of the coolest things I have learned so far is what kind of vessel I am sailing. I don't mean what style or how she sails, I mean who made her, when and where.


I had been led to believe that she was a Robert Tucker designed boat but none of the sketches of his boats really matched up. I recently ran across a photo that looked exactly like my boat, and began to follow the URL trail until I found real data about Waltzing Matilda (not by name/serial number)
Medium displacement fibreglass / wood cruiser / racer
LOA 24ft 0in 7.3 m
LWL 19ft 0in 5.8m
Beam 8ft 6in 2.6m
Draught 2ft 9in 0.8m
Sail area 244 sq ft 22.7 sq. m
Displacement 1.85 tons 1900kg
Ballast 1000 lbs 454kg

I began to dig deeper and found her builder's history and discovered that she is considered a racing boat. I know that she was originally a twin bilge keeled boat and seeing the conditions the British owners harbor in I can see why, I am very happy with Waltzing Matilda being a single keel, it makes it easier to get her off the sand when we do run aground. All this information came from a group of Brits that sail together in Falmouth Gypsys, looking closely at their photos I could see that several of them had the same style rigging that I have, a couple had modified theirs to both cutter and yawl. I would love to put a bowsprit and another fore sail on, I've been thinking about it now that I have more sails and am planning to re-rig anyway.

I still want to head down to the Everglades before hurricane season really sets, and maybe cruise back through Key West, I've scoped and plotted a course and want to get that done soon, so I am working on raising some cash and re-stocking the boat with months worth of food. After Key West I will run back up to the St Petersburg area for the storm season.

I finally figure out how to follow the track my GPS makes in Google Earth, now you can play it too and see how close I anchored to shore, how deep the shoals that I ran over were and how slow I moved in 5kt variable winds, I posted the kml file in Google Docs, and I put more pictures up at Picasa

On Board the Waltzing Matilda

I went to a pirate festival, imagine Silver Dollar City meets a renaissance faire, add some Disney costumed douchbags, mix in plenty of cos-players and add one dirty hillbilly pirate for flavor and you have the John Levique festival. For some reason any man that dresses up like Johnny Douche's pirate character immediately walks, talks and behaves like a flaming queen, there were at least seven of them, and a few tourists that were wearing the head gear recently acquired from Rat World ( Walt Disney Hell). I was quite disappointed that there were no Somali's represented.

I don't know who or what John Levique was but I am guessing that the name "John's Pass" may have something to do with him. I sailed in and noticed a bunch of slack jawed locals pointing and staring at me, apparently they had never seen anyone 'sail' their boat through the shoals, everyone motors through and runs aground frequently. I sailed through Friday night and did reconnaissance to see where I would drop my hook the next day, I made certain to come in at low tide so that the shoals were exposed.

I headed a bit north and anchored near a dock operated by McDonald's, went to shore to get beer and food and since I used the McDonald's dock felt it was only right that I spent money there, my stomach reminded me that night "don't eat McDonald's"

there was some pretty neat things to see at the festival, but it was difficult to get to shore, they weren't prepared for boats to attend, they were more prepared for bus loads and autos. This fellow made himself a set of really cool goggles, it has a movable iris and look pretty darn cool. It's hard not to like bag pipe music and there was a bit of that too.



I did pretty well for myself, my little dog rode around in a cloth shopping bag and made plenty of friends, when people discovered that I wasn't "in costume" but was the real deal they bought me food and drinks in exchange for stories of the high sea. When beer is served on the street and a thirsty pirate walks by, the beer may disappear, I learned at Skatopia how to poach beer.


Here are a couple of clips of idling and steaming aboard the Waltzing Matilda out of John's Pass,FL.



After all the excitement I needed to get out and do some sailing, I slept in Sunday, I have a knack for being invited aboard other vessels and the hospitality of boaters is unmatched, thus my hangover. After I made it through John's Pass at high tide I headed out to the end of the channel and turned due south. I arrived at low tide and threaded my way through the shoals to anchor on the West side of Egmont Key. I got right up on the beach since I knew which way the wind was coming and knew that I was in 4' at low tide.

It was a beautiful evening, there were thunder storms rolling out to sea and watching the lightning was awesome. The 2' waves lulled me to sleep but being able to hear the beach kept me awake, bad dreams of Horn Island when I did sleep.

When the sun rose I took a dive before setting out, thanks to many kind folks I have a great set of snorkel gear, I didn't need my wet suit as the water was 88F and the water was 10' visibility. Mattie got upset because I was off he boat when she wanted her morning walk, but Egmont Key has big signs all over it forbidding pets and the rangers were doing morning patrol in their little electric golf cart.

Crossing Tampa Bay Channel was like playing the old video game "Frogger", I saw no less than six large vessels using the channel, these are big things that make the lil' boats I dealt with on the Mississippi and Louisiana look like toys. The rules are simple, these vessels take 20 miles to stop and are moving way faster than it looks, stay out of their way. Egmont is not far enough out for me, I've had all the karaoke and bright lights I can handle. I'm planning my route for the next time I go out, living at the hook sucks but living in the blow rocks. Next destination? 24°39'37.18"N 81°44'01.42"W

News from Boca Ciega Bay, Fl

*Jerry recently acquired his first boat, a 27' ft sailboat. It's missing a few things, like an engine, sails, interior, but he only paid one dollar for it and is enthusiastically acquiring needed things. He convinced Sam, a live aboard that has been at anchor for about a year here in Gulfport FL, to take him out in his sail boat to show him the ropes.
The two sailed south out to Egmont Key and were unable to make it home before dark so they sailed into some shallow water and dropped hook for the night.

The next morning they awoke to rough seas with a strong current and wind pushing them towards the key. There happened to be a Coast Guard vessel nearby that could see that they were struggling with the current. The CG radioed them and asked if they were in need of assistance and advised them that they were being blown into a shoal. Sam replied that they were under control but struggling to make way, I'm not exactly certain about the content of that conversation but the CG decided to board him.

Jerry is watching the CG dinghy approaching through the glasses saying "Oh shit, they're coming" over and over, Sam at the helm informs Jerry it is a good thing they are about to be boarded because it's very rough and he is afraid of running aground in a bad place.

When the CG boards Sam tells Jerry to take the helm while he goes down for his papers and goes below, one of the guardsmen stayed on the deck high enough to be hit by the boom. Jerry has only sailed the day before, the seas are still rough and the vessel is still caught in the current, so of course he makes an accidental jibe and swings the boom hard across. The guardsman caught the boom and hung on as it swung him and was able to hook his boots into the top life line. Sam runs topside when he hears the guardsman yelling "get this vessel under control" and took the helm back.

Jerry is still kind of freaked out about sailing, but knows he'll never forget the surprised look on the coastie's face on his first time out sailing.


*obviously not their real names

Life on the hook ain't fun

I have been at anchor for almost a month now, longer if I count the weeks in Vinoy Basin. I am really sick of being in the same place, Gulfport FL is a great little town with one major drawback, karaoke seven nights a week. Sound carries extremely well over water and even though I am about 150 yards off the shore where the loud bar is I can hear everything, and the bar has the "over-amplified is better" attitude. I hate karaoke.

I really want to be underway, but with storm season coming and my dis-trust of my mast and standing rigging it may be best that I stay where I am for a few more weeks. I need to re-rig but finding a place to do so is not easy, it makes it even harder when I don't get paid for the work I do, when the things cost so much (2 peaches and a pear for $3!) and when things on Waltzing Matilda are wearing out faster than I can keep up. In just 7 months time I have rusted completely through a piece of 3mm galvanized cable.

My stress level has been extremely high for the last three days, between the power boats and jet skis, the morons getting dragged around behind gasoline fume belching sport boats and karaoke singing idiots, I understand why Einstein built that bomb. Some loud drunk chicks caterwauled until 02:00 this morning, when they finally shut up and the bar shut down I couldn't sleep. I stayed up and read until 05:00 then napped for 2 hours till the sun came up and the heat began to rise.

I need to be underway, I need to be in a less populated location.

BTW Geek Love is a great book