Lake Macquarie / Glenbawn Dam

[nool]

Hi All,
I'm going to put this out there in case anyone else is interested... I'll be up on Lake Macquarie with Mystress (around Bonnells Bay, same place as our highly successful event earlier in the year) between Christmas and new year and then plan on heading out to Glenbawn dam (fresh water!) for a day or two to have a bit of a ski with James (Echo Too). Probably at Glenbawn sometime late in the first week of Jan as I'm back to work on 6th Jan...
Any takers???

Cheers!

Neil

[viteau]

Neil, I hope to attend both events.
Cheers Chris

[nool]

Hi Chris,
Good stuff! Looking forward to it. I'm guessing that there won't too many takers for Bonnel's bay as the main event there will be the following weekend, but it would be great if we could get a few boats out to Glenbawn dam. I've never been out there and I'm looking forward to checking out a new venue. James was telling me all about it at Narrandera. The water is apparently good enough to drink!

Anyway hope to see you up there.
Cheers!
Neil

[JamesW]

Chris, good to hear from you!

We will be at Glenbawn most weekends between now and Christmas, then relo's are staying there between Christmas and new year, so boat will stay at the dam.

Unsuccessfully attempting to drink less dam water !!!!!!!

Neil, make sure you bring your wakeboard. I have a high pole but no wake.

James,

[viteau]

Hi Neil/James
I hope to make it to both events if it's ok to leave my boat down at James's house for the week. It would be good to try out different props from your workshop. Cheers chris

[JamesW]

Chris, Viteau is welcome to stay in the garage for a week! My props are 1" and SAE taper not Morse, hope they fit, I have one that has never been tried and looks interesting, don't know which taper it is either. I found the perfect prop for Echo Too and have not played since.

James,

[viteau]

Hi James, is the ramp ok for cars? Or should I be borrowing a 4wd. I think my prop shaft is 7/8" but I will look through my records and find the details. Cheers

[JamesW]

Ramp is good for cars. I have an old twin cab rodeo and have never had to use 4WD, but if you are not sure with the car we can use the rodeo.

Except old mate in a 6 week old XR6 falcon last year who totally submerged by not putting the trailer in far enough and wound his bayliner on with the electric winch, picking up the rear wheels of the XR6 and totally submerging it! Thankfully no one in the car.

The original shaft on my boat was a 7/8" and I have a copper sleeve to be able to fit 1" props, this gives more options. I think there are 2 good 7/8"and 3 1" bore props. My original 7/8" shaft suffered flexing problems!

Cheers,
James

[viteau]

Thanks James, I will bring some tools and hopefully they fit and offer something different. The car story sounds like another one of those cases of not knowing how to launch and load a boat correctly. Cheers chris

[JamesW]

The Christmas vacation period is usually an entertaining time at the dam, at least one boat has sunk/year for the last couple of years, ski/speed boats cutting straight through areas with submerged trees and stumps, the ramp turns into an absolute dogs breakfast with people unpacking on the ramp with others waiting prepared. The main ramp is fairly steep and a good grade to float a timber boat off the trailer without putting your car wheels in the water and is made to accommodate 2 vehicles but there have been occasions (Australia day) especially around the school holidays where we go around to a second concrete ramp that has a shallower grade but little traffic. At these times we load up the boat with gazebo, eskys etc and travel about 13k "up the back" to some quiet bays.

I have a fish finder (depth sounder) installed which I use to check areas I am unsure about, and used to work most of this country mustering on horseback before they raised the wall/water level in the mid 80's, so have a good knowledge of what is submerged.

Chris, I have a good prop puller, and a heap of tools so don't bring the workshop.