I guess you could say Tassie is Australia's answer to the PNW, Scandinavia or New Zealand. A treasure that is even now relatively undiscovered. Tassie suffers from her reputation as being cold (true in winter), wet (mainly true on the West Coast) and a bit of a trial to gettting to (yes, but maybe but )
Weather; Summers in Tassie are fine and mild. OK so its not tropical but its certainly not brass monkey stuff. Winters are chilly no doubt and with the prevailing winds and storms out of the south west, the west coast is probably not the place to be but its still ice free water and no need to haul boats out for the chill.
Wet; Tassies west coast and centre do get a lot of rain but probably not as much as the dreaded PNW where apparently it never stops. East coast Tas gets no more rain than anywhere else on the east coast of Oz indeed overall Hobart is Australia's second driest capital city.
Wild; Of course if you have seen the film of the '98 Sydney - Hobart then you are going to have a few worries about Bass Strait but do remember the Hobart begins in Sydney and runs straight through. A cruising boat is going to rock hop down the coast and hold up in Eden until the perfect weather window appears. Then its get across the straight as fast as possible and rest up in the Furneax Group, a passage of around 220nms. Should be doable without too much bother cos you ain't leaving Eden when its blowing 50 knots out of the south now, are you ?
So all in all the place intrigues me deeply. An anti clockwise circuit makes most sense and again except for the actual west coast runs (approx 100nms to Macquarie Harbour and a further 80nms to Port Davey) there are spots where you can duck in for shelter if needs be.
Anywho ... the purpose of this post was to give a blatant plug to a series of articles by Jack and Jude Binder, running on MySailing.com.au, that cover pretty much all of Tassie only missing out on the east coast which I'm sure or at least hopeful will follow at some stage. If their articles on Macquarie Harbour and Port Davey/Bathurst Harbour don't make you want to go there then you need to check your pulse.
Start with NorthCoast, then King Island and Hunter, Macquarie Harbour, Port Davey and finally the South. Enjoy.
http://www.mysailing.com.au/news/tasmania-north-coast
and yep .... obviously named in honour of yours truly ...
Then go check out the Jack and Jude website -
http://jackandjude.com/
ps (edit) - further reading of the website shows that Banyanda sailed north from MacHarbour so I'm not at all sure if the JJs did the East Coast at all.
I'm hoping by the way to be able to write a review of their latest book "Where Wild Winds Blow" but as it isn't released until mid December I doubt that will be before New Year.
Weather; Summers in Tassie are fine and mild. OK so its not tropical but its certainly not brass monkey stuff. Winters are chilly no doubt and with the prevailing winds and storms out of the south west, the west coast is probably not the place to be but its still ice free water and no need to haul boats out for the chill.
Wet; Tassies west coast and centre do get a lot of rain but probably not as much as the dreaded PNW where apparently it never stops. East coast Tas gets no more rain than anywhere else on the east coast of Oz indeed overall Hobart is Australia's second driest capital city.
Wild; Of course if you have seen the film of the '98 Sydney - Hobart then you are going to have a few worries about Bass Strait but do remember the Hobart begins in Sydney and runs straight through. A cruising boat is going to rock hop down the coast and hold up in Eden until the perfect weather window appears. Then its get across the straight as fast as possible and rest up in the Furneax Group, a passage of around 220nms. Should be doable without too much bother cos you ain't leaving Eden when its blowing 50 knots out of the south now, are you ?
So all in all the place intrigues me deeply. An anti clockwise circuit makes most sense and again except for the actual west coast runs (approx 100nms to Macquarie Harbour and a further 80nms to Port Davey) there are spots where you can duck in for shelter if needs be.
Anywho ... the purpose of this post was to give a blatant plug to a series of articles by Jack and Jude Binder, running on MySailing.com.au, that cover pretty much all of Tassie only missing out on the east coast which I'm sure or at least hopeful will follow at some stage. If their articles on Macquarie Harbour and Port Davey/Bathurst Harbour don't make you want to go there then you need to check your pulse.
Start with NorthCoast, then King Island and Hunter, Macquarie Harbour, Port Davey and finally the South. Enjoy.
http://www.mysailing.com.au/news/tasmania-north-coast
and yep .... obviously named in honour of yours truly ...
Then go check out the Jack and Jude website -
http://jackandjude.com/
ps (edit) - further reading of the website shows that Banyanda sailed north from MacHarbour so I'm not at all sure if the JJs did the East Coast at all.
I'm hoping by the way to be able to write a review of their latest book "Where Wild Winds Blow" but as it isn't released until mid December I doubt that will be before New Year.