 Back to Chapter Seventeen - We Get Our Own Boat |
Chapter 18 Bass Strait - The Roaring Forties |
| Back to Chapter Seventeen - We Get Our Own Boat |
Chapter 18 Bass Strait - The Roaring Forties |
After our cruise through the Greek Islands in 1999, I was doing some thinking about my sea time before we went. I had been sailing since late 1995, and in that time I had competed in weekly fun races of a few hours each, several serious races ranging from a few hours to 24 hours, and had one bareboat charter in the Whitsundays. Total sea time…about one month. So with one month’s experience, I had taken my wife and son and his girlfriend on a sailing trip, on a boat I was unfamiliar with, through 300 miles of waters I was unfamiliar with, visited harbours I did not know, using charts written in Greek, and without a working GPS.
I enrolled in an Offshore Yachtmaster course. I did it in Moreton Bay.
“You did an Offshore Yachtmaster course in Moreton Bay?” I hear you ask.
As Mike the instructor said, “If you can’t sail out on the open ocean, you shouldn’t be doing this course. But in Moreton Bay you will come across just about every navigational hazard you will find around the world. There are container ships and tankers to avoid and there are towed sand barges to avoid, as well as many other power and sailing boats. There are sand bars to avoid, tides to contend with, narrow shallow channels to negotiate, and every type of navigational marker beacon known to man.”
One of the prerequisites to doing the course was that each participant had to have done a certain number of sea miles, including night passages. The entire practical examination was done after dark. There was a week of classroom work including knowledge of anti-collision rules and navigation, then a week on a boat including handling under power and sail, inside confined marinas and out.
I failed one section of the practical, so despite having many more ticks, stamps, and signatures in my logbook, I don’t actually have a Yachtmaster certificate. There were half a dozen examinees on the boat, and Mike. As each person in turn was the examinee skipper, everyone else was to act as competent crew, but not offer advice. My task this time was to leave an anchorage at night and sail around an island to the other side. As we left the channel from the anchorage, there were the navigational lights of a barge approaching from the direction I needed to go. I knew that we were in deep water with half a mile of room to move, so I elected to stay there until he had passed. However, the anti-collision rules stipulate that vessels must pass port side to port side. To do this I would have had to sail across the path of the oncoming vessel, and as the wind was coming from the direction we wanted to go, do many short tacks between his line and the island, in an ever narrowing y-shaped channel. I didn’t do it. This is how serious a good Yachtmaster examiner is. Mike does not just give certificates away.
I could have done the exam again, but somehow I never got a round tuit. Besides I was not looking for a certificate for commercial use. I just wanted to increase my knowledge, and this I had already achieved.
During the course I was involved in a conversation with another student. He had recently purchased a 30 foot Peterson designed sloop. Unfortunately he was in Brisbane and the boat was in Melbourne. Michael, the owner, was not very experienced, and his two mates that were going to help with the delivery, had next to no experience at all. Somehow or other I must have said something like, “If you get really stuck, I’ll come and give you a hand”.
Michael took that to mean I’m coming, and the next thing I know I’m on a Virgin Blue aeroplane to Melbourne. The boat was still up on the hard stand in a cradle when I arrived at Sandringham Yacht Club. Sandringham Yacht Club was the departure point and the return point for Jessie Martin, who in 1998-9, aboard his 34 foot sloop Lionheart, this 17 year old became the youngest person to sail solo and non-stop around the world.
Michael, with his two mates Justin and Simon, were making final preparations before departure. I started checking the weather for Bass Strait for the next week. When I had first told some of my experienced sailing mates back home what I was planning to do, most of them said to tell Michael to put the boat on a truck. Arthur however had spent all his sailing life in these waters before moving to Queensland. He told me to wait for one of the regular cold fronts to blow through and then leave straight after it, and then sail through the strait under the high-pressure system that follows.
When we thought the boat was ready for sea we waited while a 40knot gale blew all one day, then we left. To get out into Bass Strait from Melbourne you have to get out of Port Phillip Bay. This is not necessarily easy. The narrow entrance between Point Nepean and Point Lonsdale is regarded as one of the most dangerous shipping channels in the world. The gap is about 30 miles from Sandringham, and here it narrows down to a width of only a few kilometres. But you cannot use the full width of the channel. Most people believe that all tides flow one way until they come to a stop, then turn and flow the other way. Not so here! Because there is so much water trying to get in and out of this narrow channel it does not all happen during the normal run of the tide times. In fact ‘slack water’ is at about half tide. The local tide books even show this.
When it is not slack water it is recommended that vessels do not attempt the transit. There are huge overflows and whirlpools that can pull even large ships off course. There are three designated channels, and we chose one not used by large shipping. Then we were out in Bass Strait. As the earth spins, storms and tides in the Southern Ocean have very little land to hinder their progress. Tasmania is one such place, and Bass Strait is where these weather patterns have to squeeze between it and the Australian mainland. The other place is the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica, but it was another couple of years, and a few more chapters of this book, before I would challenge that piece of water.
Because we had waited for the most recent cold front to pass we now had excellent sea conditions, except it was freezing. This was Autumn, and I had brought my best Queensland warm clothes, a couple of old flannelette shirts and jeans. The only clothing I had that was suitable was a Stormy Seas wet weather jacket. As well as being waterproof, this jacket has a built-in safety harness, and an inflatable lifejacket. Originally this jacket didn’t have both. The only version that did was called the Southern Ocean, and as this brand of clothing is made in Tasmania, that made sense. However as a sailor who sailed mostly in Queensland, this would have been too hot. I asked the factory people if I sent my jacket back could they include the safety harness. They responded by saying they would not modify mine, but would make another one for me. What a great company! My other claim to wet weather protection and warmth was a pair of bright yellow plastic rain-pants. As I didn’t feel confident that I would be able to do all the necessary jobs I would probably need to do aboard, and with the fact that Justin and Simon were not feeling that happy either, we went back in. Another factor was that we had no light in the steering compass. This would mean that someone would have to shine a torch on it all night, every night, to keep us on course. Not a practical proposition.
I got some thermal underwear and some warmer shirts, and the compass light was fixed. Then after checking that the weather was still OK, we had another go. I also stole another crewmember. A yacht had just done the passage across the Southern Ocean from South Africa and had called into Sandringham for some repairs. I asked the skipper if he wanted to come on the delivery as far as Eden, just around the corner on the southern New South Wales coast. He told me, “Well I’ve got this phone number of a girl I know. If she doesn’t answer, I’ll come along with you”. Unfortunately for us, but probably not for him, the girl answered. The skipper then said, ”Why don’t you ask my young crewmember. He’s got nothing to do except spend money on beer until we can continue on to New Zealand. He’s just helmed across the Southern Ocean. He doesn’t get cold, and he doesn’t get seasick”.
This time we transited the heads at night. I stood at the helm facing backwards, lining up the lead lights for the channel we had chosen, and steered us through. Then we goose-winged it all the way to Wilson’s Promontory, the most southerly tip of the Australian mainland. Goose-winging is when the wind is directly behind the boat, and you have the mainsail pushed out on one side of the boat, and the headsail pushed out by the spinnaker pole on the other side. This is the best sail plan for sailing with the wind behind the boat, but it requires continuous concentration in the significant swells of Bass Strait. A concentration failure could cause the boat to broach sideways with the possibility of a rollover. At night I only let Heinrich, our newest crewmember, and myself, on the helm.
The sun was up as we sailed past the very aptly named Skull Rock and Wilson’s Promontory. Around the corner of the tip we sailed up to the entrance of Refuge Cove, which offers excellent shelter from westerlies. I was unfamiliar with the VHF radio coverage in this area, so I was surprised to contact a coastal patrol station at Loch Sport on the Victorian coast at the far end of Ninety Mile Beach. The forecast had not changed and we had three days of clear weather to reach Eden before the next cold front was expected through. We turned right and headed out into the paddock.
The paddock is what locals call the north-eastern end of Bass Strait. The next night we tacked against a light north-easter through the oil rigs. This is spectacular with the flames from the natural gas burn offs atop each rig. Unfortunately there was more north than east in the breeze so our making tack was heading us towards New Zealand. Before that we would meet the shipping lane from Bass Strait into the Pacific. Big ships are not allowed within so many miles of the rigs, so their track is well south-east of them, but traversing north-east – south-west. The forecast was for the north-easterly breeze to go south-west. I saw no reason to disbelieve it. Weather forecasting down here is relatively accurate. Everything happens so regularly and consistently through Bass Strait. Many people familiar with Melbourne’s weather may disagree. There are those who say if you don’t like the weather at the moment, wait five minutes. Yes the weather in Melbourne can change quickly, but the big patterns can be forecast regularly in advance.
With the sails set for windward sailing I asked for the helm to be locked in place. What this allowed was for the boat to be steered by sail trim. With the sails correctly set and not touched, the boat would steer herself depending on the direction of the breeze. I asked the two on watch in the cockpit to tell me when the compass was showing our course to be for Point Hicks on the south-eastern corner of Australia. This would mean the breeze had backed to the forecast south-west. As we sailed in the direction of crossing paths with the procession of ships lights we could see in the lanes, the calls were, “120………..120…………120………….120………….110…………..100………….90…………..80……………70…………..60……………50……………40”.
“Ease sails!”
As the sun rose we had less than 50 miles to Point Hicks. Then the breeze sprang up. This was not far from where the monster storm hit the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race fleet, with tragic loss of life and boats. We were still under the high-pressure system, so what ever this was, it was only local and therefore should not get too bad. Indeed the worst it got was a quite manageable 25knots all the way past Point Hicks, Cape Howe, Green Cape, and Gabo Island. Gabo Island is the last vestige of safety for yachts before they head out into the Bass Strait for Tasmania. It is also the first vestige of safety for any boats that turn back. This is often not a good idea, but that is a story for more experienced and knowledgeable sailors and meteorologists than me.
Sailing north up the NSW coast we were goose-winging again. By now everyone was helming, and at one point Simon was at the wheel when he glanced over his shoulder to see a three metre wave hovering over us. “You’re doing a great job mate. Just don’t look back and you’ll be fine”, I said.
That evening we sat becalmed at the entrance to Twofold Bay, with Eden in the background. We had dinner before motoring into the port. Eden Harbour has jetty mooring so with my memories of our stay on Mieke in Crowdy Head, it was as well that I had asked Michael to bring a fender board along. We spent two days and two nights in Eden, put Heinrich on a bus back to Melbourne, and motored over to the shelter of an anchorage near the woodchip plant for protection from the cold front that eventually came through Bass Strait and blasted south-easterlies up the coast.
As we sailed north the next day I called the coastal patrol at Bermagui. We still had several hours of daylight, and I wanted to know what the bar crossing conditions were like at Narooma, a further ten miles north. As it was, the coverage was good enough to get a response from the coastal patrol at Narooma. They said that the bar was OK so we continued on and motored into the Wagonga River. This is where I used one of the tricks I had learnt for the first time during my Yachtmaster course.
We had practiced feathering in the Brisbane River with several knots of tide running. To enter the channel in a marina normally means turning the boat so that the keel is broadside to the current. Depending on the speed of the current, this can sweep the boat at alarming speed into the boats tied up in their berths on the downstream side. An alternative is to feather the boat in. We practiced this outside the marina first by motoring alongside a pontoon on the river side. If the front of the boat is pointed into the current, and slight adjustments of the throttle are used, the boat will remain in the one spot. Small flicks of the wheel will move the boat sideways only. Thus you can line the boat up into the current with the open marina channel beside you. Small flicks of the wheel will bring the boat into the channel sideways until the boat is lined up fore and aft with the vacant berth. Then a slight throttle increase will bring the boat forward into the pen.
At Narooma, once again we would be tying up to a jetty. The only vacant spot was between two other boats right at a dog-leg. It wasn’t my boat so I volunteered to have a go. I took Happy Daze past the parking spot with the current, and then turned back into it. As I paralleled the boat that would be behind us, I feathered Happy Daze sideways to within a few feet of her. Then I inched slowly upstream until I was beside the space. Then with those slight flicks of the wheel we inched sideways into our spot to the moralising cheers of a group of interested spectators. Nothing broken, no-one bleeding. Another good landing.
Michael wanted to leave the next day so I walked up to the coastal patrol station to get the weather forecast and to check the state of the bar. The officer told me that a sharkcat with twin 90HP motors had been turned back by the waves. I decided our small diesel would have no chance so we waited another day. Next day was calmer, and as I had made such a brilliant job of parking the other day, I offered Michael as owner, the honour of leaving the dock. This was accomplished successfully, and we waited at the end of the rock walls in a small cove, while I listened for the coastal patrol officer to give me the word on the radio when there was a good long stretch of flat water before the next set of waves. The call came and we made it safely out.
Next stop was Ulladulla. I can’t remember too much about it so it must have been uneventful, and we left early next morning. We sailed past Jervis Bay heading for Sydney, with no real thought of stopping in between. As we were abeam Kiama at dusk, Eileen got through to me on my mobile phone. My 84 year old mum was in hospital. She had several cancer operations during the past year or so, but this sounded final.
Then the weather went funny again. Behind us to the south there was a lot of lightning, but there were also a lot of stars. I have seen what lightning can do to a sailboat. A mast is a very big metal conductor. Lightning striking the mast can hurt or kill anyone touching a metallically connected part of the boat. Lightning can and will fry any and all electrical equipment. If lightning travels down the mast and finds only a small gap into the bilge it can blow a hole through the bottom of the boat trying to get to earth. Lightning is also obviously a sign of a possible storm with strong winds and large waves. I decided to head into Wollongong harbour.
The millions of lights of Wollongong made picking out the harbour entrance very difficult. Also just south of Wollongong is Port Kembla. Port Kembla is the closest specialist industrial port to Sydney. The roadstead for ships coming and going is north – south passing Wollongong. As Justin was on the helm as we motored west into port, I asked him if he could see the lights of a block of flats in front of him. He said yes, and then I told him it was a ship. We went around the ship and into the harbour. After we tied up I walked up to the lighthouse to sit at its base and watch the light show out to sea. After a few hours it didn’t seem to be coming closer, and indeed seemed to be dissipating. I walked back down to the boat and we headed out again. There was still some lightning about, but no other signs of a storm.
As we sailed past Port Hacking, Bate Bay, and Botany Bay next day, the breeze was at about 15 to 20 knots, and veering to the north. We had to beat through Sydney Heads before we were in the sheltered waters of Sydney Harbour. I had rung our travel agent and booked a flight back to Brisbane. At the very first marina we found I said my goodbyes to Michael, Justin, and Simon, had my first shower for a few days, and caught a taxi to the airport. Back in Brisbane I caught another taxi home, packed a few things, jumped on the Suzuki 1100 and headed for Dalby. I made it while Mum was still lucid. Eileen was already there, as were Kristian and Iin, and Ryan. Mum passed away peacefully a few days later. The young men on Happy Daze made it safely to Brisbane with some good party stories to tell
On to Chapter Nineteen - Thailand and the Golden Triangle 