A Whole New World Out There - Episode 11: On the Missing Yacht in Bass Strait
“It was the worst I’ve been in!” said several veterans of Bass Strait and the Melbourne to Hobart Races, one had crossed it over a hundred times, another did this race more than fifteen times. “We’ve been in higher seas before but this was different. The motion was different. It was a confused seas.” For me, I can only describe it as “Two and a half days of being soggy wet, shiververververy cold, continually seasick, smashed by waves, and battered about, otherwise fantastic.”
A lot of preparations went on weeks before “the race”, the only significant unknown was of course the weather and when the forecast came it was of course bad. There was no other word to describe it. But it was not so bad, just 30-35 knots southwesterly with squalls for a couple of days. The cold front passed us during the night we were at Blairgowrie after the first leg of the Sovereign Series (I thought “You Bew-dy, bl--dy good timing” as I listened to it pelting the boat) before it went on to hit the Sydney Hobart fleet. I’d naively thought we were through with it.
Families came to help particularly to deliver frozen cooked-meals. Two past crewmembers Mike and Stephane came to send us off too, we were very touched. We felt ready, prepared, eager, easy, confident –right up until starting the engine, turning the key.
Dead silence. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Both batteries were very flat.
A race against time, several heads were in gear. An angel (wife of a crewmember) who we could never do without was, as usual, called to turn the car around. A friend (of another crewmember) in a holiday house nearby was called and promptly arrived with jumper leads. The yacht next to us very generously agreed to jump-start us. Squalls arrived and bucketed down drenching all the helpers and one crewmember. Several tries with various combinations, eventually starting off the other yacht’s batteries bypassing ours and with the right leads finally got us a putt-putt-putt-vrrrrrrrrm…
So we’re going.
Going we were, rain or shine, except that there was hugely more rain AND HAIL than shine. We paraded around to entertain the crowd on the pier who kindly came to see us off. As the race started the forecast wind soon played out. We had No. 1 reef in, No. 3 headsail. Sitting at the rail being thudded by large waves we looked up and saw the headsail wrinkling down. “Hell, we lost the halyard!” Up we went to change to No. 4. Back to the rail for more soaking. I looked aft. “Bl--dy –ell, when did we tear the main?!” A meter long rent along the leach was not a good sight. I contemplated what was next to come and called for the short tether to be passed up the line to me. Soon we were struggling reefing in to No. 3. The boat was heeling nearly vertical, and when more than one person were at the mast one (me!) was invariably hanging off leeward and it took all the effort just to hang on, let alone taming the main in that wind. The short 1-metre tether I took up with me and hooked onto the mast was definitely my life saver.
More waves towered up. A crewmate a little newer to Bass Strait exclaimed “Whooaaa!!!” I had seen 8-metre swells before but those did not crash at us like now. I was first up at the rail from the bow so copped everything and was picked up by the waves and thrown against the stanchions several times. By now I was starting to fall asleep possibly because of the effect of the anti-seasickness pills, so dozing off and woken up by thrashing waves. I sure kept checking that my tether was definitely on the lifeline and told my crewmate that I was falling asleep.
With that kind of motion and the cold and tiredness I was soon seasick and instead of doing it downwind onto crewmates I sicked up on my wet weather pants and let the waves washed it off. You just had to do what you had to do. I so hate being sick. I sicked up and sicked up. We were first watch so very long and cold hours ensued. Skipper reorganised the watch from 4-up-for-4-hours to 2-up-for-1.5-hours. Sweet words came, an order to “go down”.
I crawled below and sicked up in the bucket. Peeling off the top-off-the-line-very-expensive wet-weather gear I discovered that my three layers of thermals and two layers of middle layers were all wet. I stayed wet from head to toes for the next two and a half days. Watch after watch the body went through the motion of going up on watch shivering and cold and poised for action, going below exhausted peeling wet gear off and trying to dry out and warm up in a bunk, being called up and responding “Yep, I’m coming up”, crawling about on wet sails to toilet at the head with the boat bucking like a wild horse (and you must know that the guys could not possibly aim in that condition but I had to sit in it!), working the pump, shutting the seacocks, sicking up, floundering around ‘among piss and chuck’ thinking to myself ‘this is the lowest living I’ve sunk to’, getting the wet and heavy wet-gear on on top of soggy and stinking clothes, followed by harness, tether, life jacket, crotch strap, beanie, gloves, and sunglasses for daytime, picking up a bottle of water, then hoisting self up the steps that were at a weird angle, seeing the horizon at a very weird angle, therefore promptly sicking up somewhere, then hooking on the tether and hoisting self into the wet and cold cockpit, having cold waves hitting your eyes like knives while trying to see the blurry water world before signalling to crewmates “I got it, you go down”.
I prayed that nothing needed doing up the foredeck as I felt my energy going down and down. If something needed doing I knew I would do it and could do it, I just hoped that I didn’t have to, in that condition. Being conscious of not having muscle power like the blokes I wanted to keep my energy up so made myself eat (nibble) my personal supplies: snakes (sweets), breakfast bites, cashew nuts, small apples and water, and I carried anti-seasickness pills in my wet weather pocket so never missed taking one and that very definitely helped. A little reprieve afterwards when I heard the blokey blokes say that they were completely buggered too.
I was not feeling too bad, I was aware of human suffering far far far worse so this was relatively tame. My mental energy held up very well. “I know I will get through this.” “I know it will end, nothing lasts forever.” “I know I will be alright.” I was just determined to do what I had to do. Our team worked well, we clocked through, we held out.
An hour and a half was the most one could stand and it was a big relief to call the next watch. Once going below I was completely exhausted I couldn’t move, not even to peel off and lie down. I sat at the nav table. Skipper came down next and wedged himself at the port galley. One foul wave hit us and the whole mass of our big-build skipper flew right across the nav table and smashed my skull against the shelving. I dropped onto the bunk holding my head not knowing whether it had broken off my neck, just feeling an instant massive headache. Skipper later came up with multiple bruises. In a separate incident another crewmember crashed into the sharp edge of the stove and bruised badly on the ribcage. We made him laugh to check whether any rib was broken and it seemed alright. I learned much later that he did have broken ribs, discovered only after the Geelong Week Regatta when in pain and x-rayed in Melbourne.
The weirdest of all must be when one rather solid guy was sleeping soundly in his port low-bunk; a big whack of a wave and he somehow ‘fell’ or ‘flew’ through the air right across into the top starboard bunk! It was a little bunk with a very narrow opening more like a shelf really and luckily I was not energetic enough to gymnast myself up it (my usual bunk) during the previous tack and the lee cloth was half down, so our guy slotted right into it like through a letter box. He woke up staring at the ceiling trying to work out whether the boat was upside down or what.
Next sched. time. We reported our position. Nobody could hear us!
We could hear everyone else. Later word came about a 45 knot gale warning and the Race Director issued a very wise recommendation that yachts sheltered at Grassy. Bless him. I think it was significant that he did that. For us, with the main ripped and two halyards gone the two owners consulted each other and Skipper said to put in at Grassy. Two other yachts also headed there and another for Three Hummock Islands.
My physical strength held up, my mental strength solid but the thought that this might mean retiring brought a lump to my throat. I grabbed Skipper’s face in the bunk next to me “Putting in at Grassy, does it mean we’re out of the race?” “No, no, just repair and go on.” I breathed a sigh of relief and dropped off in exhausted sleep.
We found we could talk to Yoko on HF (once) and that was what saved the day as we could send news that we had radio and rigging problems but otherwise were OK, and that we were heading for Grassy.
That was the last anyone heard from us for the next 19 hours.
What was to be 4-6 hours to Grassy took an eternity, Watch after watch. Tack after tack. We could hear people on radio talking about us, and the Sydney Hobart fleet heard about us too. We kept up trying to report on both HF and VHF repeatedly “This is Magazan 53, Magazan 53, over”. No one heard us, not even Yoko the relay vessel. We became the missing yacht.
Our thoughts were with families and friends who would have been checking the website and would not know what became of us. Although one landlubber told me “Good job I did not know what ‘Magazan 53 missed the sked.’ meant”. After an eternity in the wet, cold, and very bumpy world Skipper got me to call down “We are approaching Grassy, all hands please, everyone UP.” It was around 1 am.
One of the owners made a call from his CDMA mobile phone to the Race Director with apologies for the time of call. His excited reply was “Thank God you’re safe!! It doesn’t matter what time you call!” Apparently a search and rescue plane was scheduled for 6 am to search for us. And the police have been down the harbour a few times looking out for us. Race Control’s comforting thought had been that they knew we were heading for shelter, that we had radio problem, no EPIRB was set off, and they knew our boat and race records and Skipper/owners and that our crew were well prepared.
In fact all 8 of us each carried a personal EPIRB (plus 3 more in the grab bag and life raft), each had attended the Safety and Sea Survival course (and passed) and that everyone was a regular permanent crewmember. Skipper checked around and all of us said that at no time did we feel we were in danger.
News was sent to families. A huge relief, but stress must have taken its toll, with two of our ‘ground crew’ in Hobart Hospital.
At that time we were still in the race. At Grassy Skipper ordered, sweet music to the ear, “6 hours sleep, 2 hours repair”. Everyone blinked out. Still wet, still cold, still in the boat.
By morning, the sun was shining. Sails were taken on deck, all below was cleared out: debris, rubbish, scattered brown muck whatever-it-was, and we started to dry out quickly. I found out that everyone else was quite dry inside their gear and one was not seasick.
I went up the mast to rescue the halyards. As I shinnied up I saw with horror the top of the starboard shroud and yelled down to Skipper “Nickkkkkk...... two strands have come off!” The expressionless face looked up and he went very very quiet. I saw him pacing up and down the dock for a while.
We retrieved and retreaded the halyards, repaired the main sail, and jury-rigged the shroud. With damaged rig Skipper said we could easily lose our rig in a gale. A heart breaking decision was made.
We were out of the race.
At the time it just seemed a matter of fact, we just soldiered on. A rest and a meal at Grassy, a look around at the lighthouse, then 7 pm we set sail for Stanley. Plain sailing after what we’d been through, easy clockwork watch system. We also decided to heat up and eat some of the ‘frozen-cooked-meals-for-3-days’ which were so far untouched so that we could report to our very wonderful and beloved ‘ground crew’ that what they cooked had nourished us. I can tell you this –forget all other weight-loss programs; after the ‘Bass Strait diet’ (eat-nothing, vomit-bile, and strenuous survival-living) when I showered and got changed to clean clothes in Stanley my trousers dropped right off. At Grassy and Stanley we were well looked after by kind people and officials –very many grateful thanks. From Stanley we hired a “Platypus and Penguin Tour” minibus from a great fellow I think his name is Burnie. Interview calls came several times and we read our stories in newspapers. Finally we so-called yacht racers arrived at the finish line on wheels! Boy, were we happy to see bright faces greeting us at DSS. sms and voice messages were heart warming to the were-they-lost sailors… Some lucky ones had faces and bodies greeting them…
The next few days were a mixture of bliss (food!) and tracking the four yachts still to come in and thinking “we really should be there”. Accommodation was a problem since a few of us were going to sleep on the boat and everywhere was booked out. The three of us eventually got into the Backpackers aptly named “The Imperial Mansions”. It was in fact very comfortable; the bunk was wide, horizontal, stable, and dry!!!
One early morning I chatted in whispers to a roommate, it was soon evident we were both racing. She was from the Melbourne-based Helsal II in the Sydney Hobart race; she asked what boat I was on. I told her.
“You Bitch!” (a very endearing Australian expression) “We’ve been so worried about you. What happened to you?!”
We raced out to the meals room and swapped tales in rapid fire. They had their drama too and pulled up at Eden and flew down to Hobart. (By hook or by crook we gotta get to the finish line! The calling was like in Close Encounter of the Third Kind.)
Barring barren and lonely Elizabeth Pier this year (until the four winning yachts arrived followed by the presentation speech that made me spill my dammed up tears) the ambience was still fantastically vibrant and uplifting for people with salt in their blood. Apart from the obligatory visits to various great yachts in various damage conditions most of my time there was spent at, where else but, Taste of Tasmania. Yeah, yeah, I know, the rest of you fellas and sheilas were at the Customs House. I was too busy stuffing down Bruny Island oysters by the dozen(s), oyster shooters, chilli mussels on rice, more chilli mussels on rice, smoked salmon, scallop pies, wild mushrooms, and berry smoothies. Oh, and Tasmanian green cherries from Salamanca market. Yep, there was a lot of room after the Bass Strait diet!
Non-sailors were bewildered “WHY do you do it?” (Come to think of it, whyyyy do I do it??) Sailors and non-sailors alike asked me would I race this race again. I stared at them in disbelief why they should ask. Of course I will!!
Copyright Solo Thesailor Melbourne Hobart 2004-2005
http://sailingstoriesandtips.blogspot.com
