Gold Coast to Airlie Beach June 2026...

Time to spend some quality time on this very well appointed cat with the kids and grandkids up at the Whitsundays. Owner Paul didn't feel up to the trip at this time but intimated he very well might join the crew for the return trip in October.

We had a reasonably good trip up with a few little problems including water in the fuel on the starboard side which regularly meant the motor was 'hunting' for some good fuel and occasionally gave up and stopped.  I managed to nurse it into submission so not too dramatic a problem. We also employed a shock treatment of Fuel Doctor which showed up immediately as milky consistency (indicating water, see pics) and did its best to keep us going. The other issue we had was with the wheel pilot which with the mostly following sea was working very hard and did quite a lot of slipping between the belt and drive unit which got progressively worse. We had and fitted (see pic) a spare belt but it wasn't new and only marginally better than the original one.

Not a big list at all for Peter and easily rectified ready for the kids. Thank you to Peter for the job and to Murray for again joining me on this lovely journey to warm waters.