by Julie Hartwig
June 2010
When my partner Jon and I were asked to deliver a Roberts 45 ketch named Windsong Oz from Brisbane to Cairns, it was an opportunity that was hard to refuse. However, as is often the case, when you are relying on mechanical items or weather reports, nothing ever runs to plan. This is the story of a “cruising” delivery that was never destined to be straight forward...
Windsong had recently been sold and her new home was to be in Weipa, hence the delivery trip to Cairns, where the new owner would collect her and take her the rest of the way to Weipa. However, as any experienced sailor will confirm, a number of key elements require assessing when considering any long passage:
1. Hull – According to the surveyor’s report, Windsong appeared sound enough. No leaks and nothing that would cause us concern. Interpretation: the boat is not a floating coffin.
2. Rig – Assessed from deck level by the surveyor as being “serviceable for its age”. To us, it looked bulletproof and if anything over-rigged, with everything appearing larger/bigger than it needed to be. Interpretation: The stick should remain standing.
3. Auxiliary Propulsion – an ancient 53hp Ford Lees diesel that looked like it had seen service in Noah’s Ark. It was in pieces when we first went aboard but was pronounced “good to go” two and a half days later, despite the fact that it was spewing out voluminous clouds of oily blue smoke. Interpretation: Cross everything and utter “warm fuzzies” every time you pass the engine room.
4. Communications – An unserviceable HF set that Jon announced he would “fix when we got to sea” (the antenna wires were severed at deck level when the mizzen had been removed when the boat was slipped for survey). An ancient VHF, that, despite concerns, transmitted and received “5 by 5” according to a radio check with Coast Guard Redcliffe (NB, the base was located 50 metres away across the marina basin). A 27 MHz set about the same vintage as the VHF, but it did work, and four mobile phones (digital, 3G, Next G and any other “G” you can think of). Interpretation: No worries, mate. Got enough comms to talk us out of a roll of cling wrap.
5. Crew – four POB. Jon, Steve (know to all and sundry as “Stainless”) and myself who are very active members of Coast Guard Tin Can Bay, (Jon and Stainless are also very experienced sailors), and Rob who is a fisherman with 25 years experience in trawlers and a dab hand at fixing things mechanical. Interpretation: If you were going to pick a crew, you could do worse than have this lot aboard.
Now, Brisbane to Cairns is a fair old slog and when Windsong’s new owner said he wanted the boat there by the end of June, we knew the trip to Cairns wasn’t going to be a leisurely cruise. We allowed a month.
We arrived at Scarborough Marina and set about getting Windsong ready for sea. It was never going to be a simple job because Windsong was a floating tip and we spent the next two and a half days going through the boat from bow to stern. By the time we departed Scarborough Harbour, Windsong was capable of accommodating and supporting human life, a dozen jumbo-sized bin liners of rubbish and junk had been carted away, the decks had been scrubbed, stores stowed, the fuel tank had swallowed 150 litres of diesel and we were, to quote the phrase of the moment, “good to go”.
The following is from my personal log ...
Thursday 03/06/10
1140: Depart Scarborough. Log on with Redcliffe Coast Guard. Transit sheet forwarded to CG Mooloolaba. Windsong ship-shape; engine running sweetly, though we must look like a ghostly apparition, drifting along in our cloud of blue smoke. Winds light 5-10 knot SE. New chart plotter christened “Laurie” Lowrance. Having spent hours programming waypoints and routes, I am the only one who knows how it works and where to find things within its confusing array of pages, menus and sub-menus.
1425: Skirmish Passage off southeast tip of Bribie Island. First engine drama occurs. Noticed for some time that the engine suddenly increases revs for a few moments, then returns to normal. Incidences gradually increase until revs go up and don’t come back down. Moments later, engine gives a few coughs and stops. Silence deafening. Rob hurries below to find the problem. Stainless and I unfurl the genoa and, after trials and tribulations with jammed cars and slugs out of the mast track, finally succeed in getting the main up. Rob finally announces that the fuel tap was turned off. Nobody knows how/why/when this happened. Fuel lines bled, engine fires first time. Continue motor-sailing. Engine named “Henry” (it’s a Ford engine).
1655: Pass Caloundra Fairway, heading for Double Island Point, 52 miles north. Conditions perfect. Wind 10 knot SE, seas less than a metre. Watch a magical sunset as we pass the Sunshine Coast. Decide to try the autopilot. Windsong displays rebellious streak by doing an impromptu and rather alarming 360 that quickly sees a human back at the helm. Manual turns out to be a technical manual that tells how to fix it if it breaks down, but not how to operate it! Night watches reduced from four hours to three as Windsong has a very heavy helm and hand steering is very tiring.
2000: Log current position with Mooloolaba Coast Guard. Instructed to contact Tin Can Bay Coast Guard after 0600 tomorrow morning to update our position. Separate into night watches. Stainless and Rob stand first watch 2000 to 2300. Jon and I will take 2300 to 0200. Windsong happily motor-sailing under full main and genoa. Henry purring at 1700 rpm making 6.5 knots.
Friday 04/06/10
0020: “Laurie” has “hissy-fit”. One by one, data overlays (SOG, POS, COG, BRG, CTS, DTD, depth) drop out until only the chart, route line and ship are displayed. Try for several minutes to get them back, but final solution is to switch plotter off and reboot it. Problem solved, but cannot return to the route. Have to run from waypoint to waypoint, which means digging deep into Laurie’s “innards” to find the “Go To Waypoint” command.
0500: Back on watch. Struggle up on deck feeling like the Michelin (Wo)Man. Wearing fleece “trackies” and jacket, wet weather jacket and trousers, safety harness and life jacket, but need five layers; it’s freezing on deck. Position is east of Eurong on Fraser Island. Eastern sky showing first tinge of dawn.
0600: Listen for Coast Guard Tin Can Bay to log on with Brisbane Harbour, then weather at 0635. Nothing heard.
0645: Attempt to contact CG TCB on 16, 67, 80 and 82. Nothing heard. Try VMR Hervey Bay and Bundaberg. Nothing heard. Can hear CG Mooloolaba, but get no response when we try to contact them. Do we have a comms problem? VHF worked perfectly off Sunshine Coast, but apparently dead as a maggot now.
0800: Off watch. Jon tries again to contact CG TCB, VMR Hervey Bay and Bundaberg. Still nothing heard. We are concerned but not unduly worried as boat is performing well, crew is getting on like a house on fire and CG TCB has our transit sheet. Even though we have not spoken to them, CG TCB knows we are out here.
1000: Jon tries VHF again, but still dead as. Contact CG TCB by mobile. Told there are problems with the 16/67 outlet on Fraser Island, but our position has been logged, transit sheet forwarded to Bundaberg and they give us the latest weather – 10-15 knot SE with seas to 1.5 metres. Ironic that mobile phone is our only means of comms and only while in the vicinity of the phone tower at Orchid Beach.
1050: Large pod of whales sighted. For next hour, we watch the pod of eight adult and juvenile whales engage in play. Deviate slightly from our course and give Henry a rest as we cruise past, watching whales breaching, tail slapping, and generally enjoying their play time.
Throughout afternoon, seas increase. Wind shifts NW and strengthen to 15-20 knots. Windsong under full main, genoa and mizzen, quite happily romping along at 6.5 to 7 knots. Henry still enjoying his well earned rest.
1600: Clear Sandy Cape and begin run north alongside Breaksea Spit. Sails come off one by one as wind gusts nudge 25 knots and seas become increasingly boisterous. Tide ebbing out of Hervey Bay and breaking seas are visible on the Spit. Eight hours since our mobile phone comms with CG TCB. Still unable to establish radio comms with any of the coast stations. Somebody will be getting worried about us but nothing we can do now as out of both VHF and mobile range with the mainland. The other alarming aspect of no comms is no updated weather forecast. The conditions we currently have are nothing like those in the morning forecast.
1900: Reach waypoint north of Breaksea Spit. Turn west for next waypoint north of Lady Elliot Island. Windsong taking wind and seas on the nose. All sail down. Henry tasked with getting us to Rosslyn Bay. Off watch now, resting on saloon berth.
2000: Cannot get comfortable on saloon berth and adjourn to bunk in aft cabin. Wedge self in with pillows and try to sleep.
2045: Henry comes to a grinding, coughing halt. Windsong lying ahull in short, sharp two metre seas and 25 knot NW winds. Despite being incapacitated with seasickness, Rob attempts to get Henry going again, but to no avail. The genoa is unfurled and with Stainless at the helm, we doggedly try to hold our course.
Seas confused and unpredictable; motion very uncomfortable. Rob is so seasick he cannot continue to work on the engine and has taken to his bunk for an hour. We continue under “heady”, even though only making two knots and sailing ten degrees above our desired course, which will, if we continue, take us up the outside of Lady Elliot and Musgrave Islands, but no other option for the moment.
2200: Jon is on the helm when we are suddenly hit beam-on by a big roller that knocks Windsong down. In the aft cabin, all the pillows in the world cannot prevent me being thrown off the bunk. I land on the cabin sole on the other side of the boat. (Windsong has a 14’ beam and my bunk is just aft of the widest point.) Perfect three-point landing (head, left shoulder and left hip).
Suddenly, in a lot of pain, but know enough from First Aid training not to move. Stainless finds me, tells me not to move and fetches Jon. Brisk assessment conducted: no “open” head wounds, feeling in all fingers, toes, arms and legs, nothing apparently broken. Jon decides safest place is on the floor – can’t fall or be thrown any further from there. Bed made up from a thick bunk cushion, pillows, sleeping bags wedged around me, towel rolled into a makeshift neck brace, filled up with painkillers. Nothing more can be done for me for the time being.
2345: Still battling seasickness, Rob finally gets Henry going. Fuel filter horribly clogged with slime and grunge stirred up by boisterous seas. Rob manages to clean some of slime out of filter, but really needs a new filter. Position about 17 nautical miles north of Breaksea light, 100 miles offshore, with our destination, Rosslyn Bay, over 150 miles away. Attempts to call VMR Bundaberg and VMR Gladstone fail. Accept that we have no radio comms with the mainland or mobile phone coverage and I need medical attention for serious neck and back pain.
Lying athwartships on the aft cabin sole, the aft cabin bulkhead is the only thing separating me from Henry’s thumping; the prop shaft is directly beneath me and the steering gear is in the locker beside my right ear. Not a quiet place to be, but I manage to sleep and rest with minimal movement as we make our way slowly towards the coast.
Jon decides to head for Gladstone. ETA is anyone’s guess and will depend on whether Henry breaks down again The state of the fuel in the tank does not inspire any confidence that he will keep going; it’s more a question of how many times he will stop and how long it will take to get him going each time. Best guess on the ETA is around 6 a.m. Sunday morning. The prospect of having to spend over 30 hours immobilised on the floor is enough to make this grown woman cry, but nothing can be done to get me to Gladstone any faster. No one knows where we are and we can’t communicate our situation to anyone. Bugger that bloody VHF!
Saturday 05/06/10
0500: Abeam Lady Elliot Island. Henry stops again. Same problem. New filter located in spares locker and after bleeding fuel lines, Henry fires up again but the problem isn’t going to go away. The entire fuel system is clogged with the sludge being sucked out of the fuel tank.
0900: Being confined to the aft cabin with no ventilation is decidedly unpleasant. Every time Henry stops and the fuel lines are bled, the cabin fills up with diesel fumes. Stainless finally opens the aft ports to let in some fresh air.
1000: Buzzed by a Coast Watch aircraft, asking all usual questions: what vessel, last and next port of call. Jon tells them that we have an injured crewmember on board, that we have limited radio comms and are experiencing fuel problems. Coast Watch immediately forwards details of our position and situation to VTS Gladstone. First Aid advice is relayed that I am to stay as still as possible and to take whatever pain relief we have on board. VMR Gladstone is put on standby, but we are still over 70 miles from the mainland and beyond help.
The hours motoring to Gladstone are some of the longest in my life. In constant back and neck pain, with tingling feet and lower legs, I cannot help wonder if I have a serious spinal injury. I rest and sleep, listen to my MP3 player, swallow Nurofen like Smarties every four hours and eat mini chocolate bars. I can drink only sips of water because I cannot get up to use the head and consequently become increasingly dehydrated.
Every time Jon or Stainless come to check on me I ask “Where are we?” and am totally demoralised to learn that we are still a long way from where I imagine we are. During the day, my only view of the outside world is the square of blue I can see through the ports. At night, it is stars, wildly gyrating across the black sky, viewed first in one of the aft ports, then in the starboard ports and back again.
We are 30 miles out of Gladstone before we get scratchy mobile coverage with VMR Gladstone and 10 miles out before we get VHF contact. Henry has stopped five more times, but each time Rob, aided by Jon or Stainless, manages to get more adept at bleeding the fuel lines, cleaning the filters and getting Henry going again.
Sunday 06/06/10
0200: Establish comms with VTS Gladstone who give us permission to enter Gladstone Harbour. They inform VMR Gladstone of our position.
0300: Enter the main channel into Gladstone Harbour. VMR Gladstone have organised ambos to meet us at the Gladstone Marina fuel dock and are on standby to tow us in if we break down in the main channel. With a bulk carrier ahead of us and one following behind, breaking down is the last thing we need, but for once Henry just keeps going. The calm waters certainly helped his situation.
0400: Windsong ties up to the fuel dock and paramedics come on board. Unable to get a stretcher down below, the paramedics assess my condition and determine that nothing is obviously broken. I am given pain relief and assisted to walk off the boat. In the ambulance, the paramedics put a collar around my neck, strap me to a stretcher and administer a couple of shots of morphine. In a very short time, life is “all good”.
0430: Admitted to Gladstone Base Hospital. After several hours, more pain relief, x-rays, treatment for dehydration and observation, I’m informed there is no spinal damage, just a lot of deep tissue bruising from what the doctor calls “impact trauma injuries” (like car accidents); I will be very sore for quite some time. A smorgasbord of drugs is prescribed - anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and strong painkillers - and physiotherapy is recommended. I am advised to “do as little as possible for the next four or five days”. When I ask if I can carry on with the trip to Cairns, the doctor gives me one of those “are you nuts?” looks and says, “I can’t make that decision, but if it was me, I wouldn’t.” I can understand the rationale behind that advice. Being jolted around is the last thing I need and if the injuries didn’t settle down, I’d end up back in hospital further up the coast.
1500: Discharged from hospital. Thanks to the VMR boys for picking me up. Back at the boat, I learn that I am officially a “Marine Incident”. Gladstone Water Police have paid a visit during the morning. Our contact with Coast Watch was automatically relayed to Canberra, who relayed the info to Gladstone Water Police. We did not know at the time, but they were on standby with both a helicopter and a vessel, if my situation deteriorated to the point of requiring a Medivac. Without comms, I don’t exactly know how we could have forwarded this request had it been necessary. A Marine Incident Report form is duly completed. (The outcome, after an investigation by MSQ, was NFA. Even they accept that when the weather is a contributing factor, shit happens on boats.)
Tuesday 08/06/10
1630: My brother lives in Gladstone and after a brief phone call, I leave the boat and spend the next three days camped in front of my brother’s big screen telly surfing 300 channels on Austar. Windsong departed Gladstone the following morning and continued on to Cairns with only three crew. She arrived a week later.
It wasn’t the cruise outcome I’d expected and knowing that my back injuries may be aggravated by as little as a day at sea will force me to reconsider my sailing/cruising adventures. It has taken the best part of two months to get over the initial injuries caused by “the crash” and physio will be ongoing for some months. I don’t want to go through an experience like this again. However, as with all bad experiences, lessons can be learned.
1. Never take a previous owner’s word – “it’s all good”; “she’s good to go” – at face value.
2. Just because a radio works 50 metres from a Coast Guard base doesn’t mean it will work 50 miles offshore.
3. Never trust the weather forecast, especially around Fraser Island, which has its own ecosystem and will often dish up conditions you would have a better chance of predicting with a crystal ball.
4. The operative word in the name “Breaksea Spit” is “Break” – people, boats, engines, mechanical stuff and anything else you take up there. Since Windsong’s experiences, I know of two more Tin Can Bay yachts who have transited the area and been beaten up, resulting in them running for shelter to Bundaberg. Adopting the Boy Scouts motto “Be Prepared” is advisable.
5. Be meticulous in your passage planning. If you aren’t, expect that everything that can go wrong will go wrong because every boat has an invisible crew member called Murphy who will make his presence felt when you least expect and need it. This usually happens when the first chink appears in your “solid-as-a-rock” passage plan. From then on Murphy’s presence will escalate even simple issues until your passage plan goes into full pear-shaped mode.
Finally, a few interesting notes about Breaksea Spit that anyone transiting the area should consider. Large-scale charts show Breaksea Spit sticks out a long way from the mainland - 47 miles to Burnett Heads and 110 miles to Gladstone. It is about 25 miles from Sandy Cape to the Breaksea Light. The water depth along the eastern side of Breaksea Spit is as shallow as 20 metres close inshore and around five miles offshore, drops away to around 200 metres on the edge of the continental shelf. By the time you are 10 miles offshore, the depths drop rapidly to over a thousand metres – straight down like the proverbial free drink! The Breaksea Light is less than 5 miles from the edge of the continental shelf.
This shoaling results in some interesting currents setting around the spit. Some electronic charts (we used Navionics on Windsong) show a NE current of up to 3 knots setting down the eastern side of the spit and Garmin’s MapSource charts indicate both flooding and ebbing tides setting strongly across the spit. With SE swells and an outgoing tide of up to 2 knots setting out of Hervey Bay, you have a classic recipe for some very interesting sea conditions and that’s before you factor in local wind and weather conditions. Our experience indicated that any wind with a westerly component, especially W to NW, will give you plenty to think about.
Strong east to south-east currents combined with tide ebbing out of Hervey Bay create large, confused seas around Breaksea Spit. Strong winds only exacerbate the situation. Factor real time observations at your location into the official weather forecasts issued by the BoM. Saying (often repeatedly) that the conditions you are experiencing are not in the forecast won’t make them change to toe the forecast line. Interpretation: suck it up, princess! Batten down the hatches and head for the nearest safe harbour.
I have no real desire to visit this particular stretch of water again, but those who do, forewarned is forearmed. Be prepared for anything.