⛵ The Huia in Bass Strait #27
Part 2 of 2: Singlehanded across Bass Strait in an 86 year old open timber boat
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Read part 1 of this story here.
At home, I woke each morning looking for a minimum of 5 days of favourable weather to get me along the coastline from Melbourne to Wilson's Promontory. Each day, the southeasterly was still there. Days turned into weeks and all of a sudden it was entirely too late in the season to sail at all - sailing an open boat across Bass Strait in winter was not an option. Before long, our son was born and I couldn't bring myself to leave even in ideal conditions... I stopped looking at the weather, more enamoured with what we had brought into the world. My partner urged me to go anyway, but I couldn't. How could I leave now on such a journey with a son less than a month old? In fact, how were voyages like this going work in general? I began to wonder, perhaps these days were over? It was decided the voyage must be re-assessed in spring.
Several nights a week throughout the dark Tasmanian winter, I would wake at 3am worrying about Huia. With our tiny island separated from Melbourne by Bass Strait, I could not easily go check on her. My good friend Paul kept a close eye on her in my absence, but I still worried - an 86 year old timber boat is not the kind of boat you can set and forget. The months went by without mishap as Huia lay in her marina pen through winter, until at last spring began to emerge. The days became slightly longer as the general conditions for sailing appeared to change for the better, the change of seasons bringing lulls and warming waters.
By late October I was on a plane. A settled period of weather was on the horizon and I rushed to prepare Huia. All the food I had bought six months earlier was still onboard, along with 120 litres of biodiesel I had procured for the voyage. After recommissioning the boat and with some final prep, we were at last ready to set off again. With a keen eye back on the weather, I watched as my weather window disintegrated. I couldn't believe it. Because I was sailing singlehanded in an open boat, I needed optimal conditions. In all my sailing, I have always found coastal sailing to be the hardest. The biggest danger to a sailing boat is often land rather than sea, and in coastal sailing land is always within a stones throw. I packed up and went home.
Six weeks later, I spotted a double high pressure system consisting of a long period of calms. While not ideal for sailing, I decided this was my chance to make a start. With stores of biodiesel onboard, I could at least motor through the calms and get into a better position where I had better weather opportunities. Back onboard, Huia was fully prepared and within 24 hours I was off, heading out of The Rip in Port Phillip bay, at long last.
The following days were champagne sailing. Blue skies, a light northerly and flat seas. An overall trip of around 450nm (900km) lay ahead of me, which I intended to sail in a set of hops, avoiding long overnight passages due to the nature of the vessel and the lack of reliable self-steering. While there was a motorised tiller pilot onboard, it could not be relied upon for anything other than motoring and sailing in very light conditions at best - it was more intended to hold the helm while I briefly tended to the boat or tried to make a cup of tea - for the most part I would need to hand steer the entire way.
Without mishap, the first several days passed by as the weather conditions remained stable. With the coastline so close, time seemed to stand still, as the various capes of the extremely rugged coast slowly came into view and passed by. There were few places for respite, meaning I had long days of steering before nightfall. Thankfully the timing of the adventure meant the days were nearly at their longest of the year, giving me close to 14 hours of daylight to make progress. Each night I would make anchor as the sun set after a long day at the helm, as I slowly learned how to best sail Huia and her gaff rig. Having never previously sailed gaffs before, it took some getting used to - while the boat was small, the sail area was large and heavy to manage alone for long periods. The first week of sailing gave me little chance for rest - each night I would go to sleep with a pot of hot noodles for dinner, waking up before sunrise to prepare for another day. It was early in the season and few other boats were out, the coastline feeling lonely and desolate.
Whenever the breeze died out, I was forced to motor, the small Yanmar requiring hourly checks. I would tighten the engine mounts underway, or make small repairs on fuel hoses. When the afternoon breeze would pickup, I'd raise the gaff and keep us moving under full sail. We were making good progress towards Wilson's Promontory, which could be considered the official beginning of my Bass Strait crossing - up until this point, we were making south easterly progress along costal mainland Australia.
After a long day on the helm which started at 4am, I finally began to make my way underneath Wilsons Promontory lighthouse and south east point. It was nearly dark as I headed for Refuge Cove on the eastern side - this was a major milestone and somewhere I had longed to sail for nearly 20 years. It was here while bushwalking, that I encountered a man sailing solo around Australia - it was here at Wilson's Promontory that I fell in love with the idea of ocean voyaging: This was the place which had planted the seed for my voyage 12 years earlier from Europe to Australia, singlehanded. With the grace of a full moon, I anchored in Refuge Cove after 17 hours at the helm.
For two days I explored Refuge Cove, a beautiful and highly protected cove once used for Southern Right whaling. Underneath plaques from visiting boats, lay whalebones from a period long ago. Each day I would walk up to the top of a nearby hill amongst the eucalypts where I could gain a weak phone signal and download weather files. Amongst patches of rain under my homemade oilskin tarp, I’d study the weather, eventually finding a small weather window for my passage to Deal Island.
Leaving Refuge Cove at 2am, I had to make the protection of the island before 1pm, before a large south westerly system would sweep across the Strait. Departing with a full moon, we sailed out into Bass Strait, as the moon set and the sun rose. With glassy conditions and a very light northwesterly, Huia and I made steady progress toward the Furneux Group.
The Hogan Group was about my halfway point, as the winds began to pickup. Huia started to fly, keeping a steady 7kts+, as Erith Island came into clarity as we rounded the top of Deal Island with too much canvas. As soon as we were sheltered in the lee, I quickly doused the main, as the wind violently funnelled through Murray Passage. I have no doubt in my mind, if I had not taken the main down at pace, Huia would have been knocked flat on her side. In the lee of the island I made my way to Winter Cove, which was the most protected anchorage for the coming conditions. Under blue skies and strengthening winds, the cove appeared with crystal clear azure waters atop bright white sand. If it wasn't for the cold temperatures, one might think they had landed in the tropics.
The elation of making Deal Island would soon change to disappointment. As the powerful gusts funnelling through Bass Strait picked up, it became apparent that Winter Cove could not fully shield me. As night fell, gusts on the windward side were reporting up to 50kts. These gusts funnelled through the hills and spun us around on anchor, as I feared dragging anchor or worse: Losing the anchor entirely. Nervous days went past before the conditions began to finally abate and I could relax.
On the second day while I lay on the cockpit floor reading a book, I heard an unfamiliar sound. Peeking up over the coaming, I saw the fishing boat I had seen two days earlier entering the cove. They pulled up to check on me and make sure I was ok. The captain of the vessel sent his nephew over with a tender, and we spent the afternoon ashore exploring the island. Because the wind was so strong, it had been unsafe for me to attempt to make landfall in my inflatable raft, for fear of being blown out to sea. With the captains nephew, we walked across the island to meet the caretakers, where we drank home-brew beer and admired the remote homestead and former quarters of the lighthouse keepers, now long gone. That evening the captain cooked a roast, vegetables and even a cake! It was a very generous and welcome respite after more than a week of eating tinned food and noodles!
The following day I made for the top of Flinders Island, a long day in very choppy conditions, the sea state still rough from the days of strong wind. I was wet and exhausted by the time I finally made landfall, several waves making their way over the cockpit coaming, drenching me along with my gear. I was again racing to make a weather window, with another southwesterly change on its way. Traversing the stunning eastern shores of Flinders Island, I thought a lot about my father, who had come here in the early 1980's from New York City. As a kid, he had told my brother and I of stories of his life on the island, living off the land and reading copious numbers of books from the library. When he wasn’t reading, he worked as a builder for an eccentric RAND Corporation researcher and practitioner of sacred geometry.
Making landfall at the township of Lady Barron, I meandered ashore and found a pub serving food. I sat down alone with an enormous plate of food and a beer, listening to the locals talk about the time their son caught the largest shark on local record - meanwhile, the shark’s skeletal remains were pinned to the wall behind the bartender: “They’ve shrunk over the years though, the jaws used to be much, much larger.”
From the vantage point of the pub deck, I watched the breaking waves and sand bars beyond Vansittart Island. The options for making mainland Tasmania, were either Banks Strait, or east about Cape Barren Island. Tim Phillips suggested the eastern route, as I looked warily at what appeared to be a narrow passage with surfable waves on one side created by a series of sandbanks, and a beach on the other. I ate my parmigiana in mild angst
The passage was narrow as I nervously made progress, passing the rusty remains of a less fortunate ship caught on a lee shore. In doing so, I was able to avoid Banks Strait, a renowned stretch of shallow waters between northern Tasmania and Cape Barren Island, which was known for powerful currents and sharp seas. After finally making way past Gull Island, I was back into friendlier waters with a gentle northeasterly, as mainland Tasmania came into clear view.
Because of the coming foul weather, I decided to sail overnight, as my tiller pilot had been performing well and conditions would allow me to make excellent progress home. However, as luck would have it, the tiller pilot had other plans for me, as dusk drew near and and it gasped its final breaths. The pilot spewed out a series of random digits across its basic LCD screen, twitching like a Boston Dynamics robot on the verge of reaching sentience, before dying completely.
With very little options for respite along the coast and deciding it was not a good idea to attempt to hand steer through the night, I sailed into Binalong Bay, tying up to an extremely bouncy mooring, exposed entirely to the prevailing wind and sea. Problems at sea tend to cascade, the failing tiller pilot was then quickly followed by a fouled prop. Stretched over the transom with my head under water, I was able to just reach the propeller and untangle the seaweed, as we drifted towards the rocks. The night was long and rough on the mooring, as the bowsprit of Huia regularly became completely submerged.
At daybreak, I pushed on for another 60nm of hand steering in difficult conditions. What can only be described as tropical squall conditions, large storm cells continually made their way overhead. At one point, visibility was down to 50m with torrential rain, as I sailed with one hand on the tiller & one hand dangled in front of the wet hot exhaust of the Yanmar for warmth. The coastline disappeared in the rain and fog as we navigated by compass alone, unable to read the screen of my chartplotter in the deluge. As night fell, I could finally see Wineglass Bay, a highly protected anchorage guarded by large rocks and towering cliffs. Shy Albatross swooped in the gusts as I stood drenched at the helm, solely focused on the entrance and dreaming of a quiet night and a long sleep, which I was gratefully granted.
I pushed on through the adverse weather along Maria Island and past Cape Bernier for the respite of Dunalley, sailing into another large storm cell building on the horizon. I should have stopped and sought shelter, but I was so close to home, I foolishly pushed on. The cell closed in and the sky went a deep purple. Cape Bernier disappeared and hail rained down. The winds went from southeast to southwest, kicking up a terrible short cross-swell. Huia bounced and rolled and dove head-first into the swell. I was so wet, I could not get any wetter even if I were to go swimming. Unable to see my compass in the rain, I dismounted it and held it in my shivering hands as I steered into the weather. There was just 8nm to go, but these 8 miles were perhaps the longest 8 miles of my life. We slowed to 2.5kts, Huia unable to make way through the chop.
This was stupid. I had made a stupid decision. Most accidents happen close to home and I was ashamed of my seamanship. I came close to turning around and seeking refuge at Maria Island, yet I started to notice the swell was slightly reducing. Or was it just my mind playing tricks on me? I continued on for another 20 minutes just to see. Yes, definitely, the swell was abating. With only 4nm to go now, I started to mentally plan my bar entry, a narrow entrance into Dunalley bay with breaking waves on one side, cliffs on the other and a shallow sandy bottom below. It was nearly dark now - my entry had to be textbook.
I picked up the first entry lead and followed it diligently. It was still raining, but the cliffs protected us from he wind, as the sea became flat and calm under protection of the land. Following the snake-like path of entry markers, with just a foot of water on either side of us, we finally made it and set anchor - 13 days after departure, we were virtually home. I patted the bow of Huia and thanked her for her service. I thought about Peter Locke who had built her 86 years ago and wished he could see how far his little boat had come - I think he would have been proud.
The following day, a friend came out and rowed me ashore for coffee – this wonderful madness was officially over. I looked back at Huia from the tender, where she appeared more beautiful and elegant than ever. After 87 years at sea, what was 13 days on passage? I had much to learn.
Special thanks to Tim Phillips, The Wooden Boatshop, Helly Hansen, Geelong Yacht Club, PredictWind, Refuelling Solutions (biodiesel supply), Paul Sayers and my beautiful family.
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Hi Nick. I found this story fascinating, thank you for sharing. My 14 year old son, George, has recently taken up sailing, a strange hobby as we live in very dry outback NSW! Nevertheless, he is following his passion and teaching himself to sail in the nearby Menindee Lake system. As a family we have visited King Island, Flinders Island and more recently Tasmania, admiring many boats along the way. George has sparked an interest in old boats and sailing in our whole family. Best wishes, I look forward to more of your adventures. Jane