When the Weather Gods Say NO!

Our vague plans to reconnect with Jim and Jeannie, the crew of SV Onora in the Pittwater after returning from our Perth Xmas proved to be unachievable. Daily south to south easterly wind forecasts in the 20-30kt range presented themselves week on week for coastal waters all along the SE Queensland coast. Tantalizingly, there were plenty of northerlies south of the border beyond Cape Byron - the problem being getting that far! Gentlemen sail downwind. Our poor friends in Mooloolaba a mere day-sail to our north, were unable to get out across the river bar for a month to go in any direction due to swell conditions. First Tropical Cyclone Linda was having an impact soon followed by TC Iris being a proper nuisance. Her influence dominated forecasts between March 23 and April 13! What to do? A: Get better acquainted with Moreton Bay.

Having spent well over 2 weeks in the Scarborough Marina reinstating the boat and fitting the new solar panels. We were really keen to get out and about and trial the new equipment which included a tri-cut radial genoa.

 

Leaving Scarborough and Redcliffe behind

 

The crew of SV Tauranga, Richard and Marianne, are Queenslanders and were virtually raised on the waters of Moreton Bay and consequently know all the bays and anchorages. Their suggestion for these strong SE conditions (up to 30kts) was Myora at North Stradbroke Island. So off we set. I’d like to say set sail but it was largely into a headwind. We did pull out the new sail though, mostly to have a look at it. We’ve realized it’s actually noticeably larger than our old genoa. By about 6sqm in fact!

 

There's an extra knot in this new sail for sure!

Moreton Bay.

The Blue dot is at Myora. Note all the sandy channels - Navigation alert!

Myora has proved to be a lovely anchorage with a very pleasant outlook. The lights from the Port of Brisbane and the higher tower buildings in the city itself, create interest on a night horizon. The shore beyond the fringing mangroves is steep and wooded. You don’t have the sense of being only a 5 minute dinghy ride from ‘civilization’ which is around in the next bay. We learned to anchor inside of a cardinal marker and another post as these identify the part of the anchorage unaffected by the current. We’ve discovered a small hump in the sea bed that creates this quieter basin. The boats that anchor further out swing to the current. Inside the basin, boats lay to the wind which is far more comfortable. You just need to know that the sudden shoaling is only for a few metres before the water is once again deeper.

 

The morning shot shows the kinds of clouds the island was holding at bay.

Myora is also known as Myora Springs and the natural freshwater spring near the shore (concealed by the mangroves) is no doubt responsible for the creation of this lovely little basin with excellent holding. Tide changes reveal sand islands used by some folks as a place to exercise their dogs or to wade about and even take chairs and drinks! There is plenty of interesting wildlife - a koala above the springs, dolphins, turtles, dugongs and eagles. It’s not Pittwater and the Bloke won’t be able to share birthday celebrations with Jim but this isn’t half bad at all!

Eagles have taken a liking to this port channel marker and their nest is almost obscuring the light.

It seems they are not in the least disturbed by the red strobe light at night.

Use It Or Loose It

“Ships were not built for the harbour ...” or so a poem begins. The same applies for boats and 10 weeks in Perth, plus a couple of incidental ones on either side getting prepared to leave, amounts to 3 months of inattention. There is nothing sadder than a neglected boat.

Putting Zofia to "bed"

We were glad of our preparations ahead of departure as it set us up for the least possible surprises when we returned. Everything was freshly laundered and bedding stored in vac bags. All surfaces were wiped down with a water and clove oil solution to minimize the possibility of any ‘food’ for mould and mildew to feast on. The fridge was emptied, defrosted, turned off and cleaned. Only the little Engles freezer was left running containing a few basics we could return to (some bread, butter, cheeses and sliced meats). Various below-water through-hull ball valves were closed off - in particular the toilet ‘intake’ hoses. The heads (toilets) were thoroughly flushed with fresh water and vinegar to ensure there would not be any calcification going on in the the ‘out’ hoses. Also to minimize the possibility of ‘smells’. Micro marine organisms and even teeny tiny shrimps and such leave a terrible pong when they die off in an unattended loo. For good measure, I also cling wrapped the bowls so that remaining water didn’t evaporate.


All lockers that hold our provisions were wiped and vacuumed ensuring that all that remained was tinned, tubbed or in Tupperware. If any critters existed or arrived they’d be doomed to a death from starvation! We also set up a dehumidifier on the galley bench with it’s hose draining into a sink and programmed it to run for 1 hour twice daily. My war on mould and mildew was ON! All these internal preparations meant that when we extended our absence from 1 month to more than 2, we would not face chaos and mould-ageddon below decks.

Being allocated a pen next to 'Santa’s Boat' which left minimal space between our vessels, we immediately marched to the chandlery to buy 2 extra fenders plus a couple of new mooring lines. We hoped to avoid any accidental nudges with 44 tonnes of steel.

Zofia squeezed up next to the 'Santa Claus Boat'

When we returned from Perth, the decks and canvas were clean from 3 months of rainfall power-washes which was a miracle. Internally all was clean and sweet smelling. What was not immediately evident was all the things that had seized up or clogged up. Use it or loose it as they say!

  

The transducer or log paddle wheel was an obvious candidate for being clogged up. And it was. It was possibly the worst we'd ever seen it. We actually can't recall ever having it so badly choked up. This time there were even small barnacles that needed to be loosened with a knife. A 15 minute job was a 45 minute one. Yuk.

 

Most zippers needed to be eased open with some encouragement from some WD-40 or Innox.

 

The Bloke thought he'd tested and tried out  e v e r y t h i n g  ahead of our departure from the marina. Just as we were prepared to leave early in the morning before the breeze was forecast to pick up,  we discovered the bow thruster was inoperative. We hardly dared slide out into the marina canal without the very bit of kit that is designed for this operation. Getting to the bow thruster motor is a horrid job as it's under the bunk in the fore cabin and that is the cabin we affectionately call our forward lazerette. 3 plastic storage tubs plus the spinnaker, mattresses, bedding etc were dragged out and replaced not once but twice! I recalled a similar incident in Port Stephens 3 years ago which was caused by a connection coming loose. The battery connections were not loose this time but despite having been coated convincingly with lanolin, knocking them about a bit and breaking whatever corrosion or interference to connectivity that existed, seemed to do the trick. Phew. The prospect of yet another week in the marina was crushing. Zofia had been tied up in there for 3 months - the longest ever time!

  

 Contents of the forward cabin now in the Salon

The barometer was looking a bit sad and needed a polish up too.

As rusty was we were feeling about our own boat handling skills, we did manage to slip out of our pen without drama and in the end without the assistance of the bow thruster.  The next thing for us to discover to be jammed were the thumb screws that hold the outboard motor onto it's stand.  This was once we'd anchored off Stradbroke Island and wanted to get ashore. Yet more grumbling from The Bloke ....."Well you use it or you loose it!" and there's no arguing the point; it's true!

Outsmarting the Dolphin Smart Battery Charger

Servicing a bit of high tech electronic kit is not really a ‘thing’. Their integrated circuits and capacitors work or they don’t but faced with forking out a ‘boat unit’ for a replacement, the affectionate boat owner’s term for $1,000; well, you’ll give it a go won’t you?

So what’s it all about?

Zofia came equipped with a Dolphin  brand ‘smart battery charger’. This item basically controls the delivery of power to our battery storage bank. Our various batteries are essential and are a level of complexity beyond a car battery. We have an isolated battery to start the motor. Another that operates the power guzzling bow thruster and anchor winch. Both are self explanatory and although the engine starter battery is pretty critical we could manage without the powered anchor winch (with difficulty) and the bow thruster which is really only used for extra maneuverability in tight places like marinas. The house batteries are a whole other world and responsible for ongoing power delivery to the fridge, freezer, lights (navigational and domestic), VHF radio, navigation equipment, AIS, radar, auto-helm and other instruments, pumps, entertainment systems and such. We are merely 21st century sailors and only as good as our electrical system and electronics allow us to be.

The thing about storage batteries and smart chargers is this; different types of batteries require different charging regimes based on their chemical composition and ability to accept and store power. Our batteries are AGM’s and just slightly different to wet cell lead acid car batteries. In practical terms, a specific voltage needs to be delivered for a particular length of time to enable the batteries to accept and store the charge. Why is our charger ‘smart’? It’s because it has multiple settings allowing for a choice of a variety of conventional battery types plus sensors and timers to monitor progress and adjust delivered volts. When it’s done it’s job, the battery status will be at ‘float’ - and hooray for that because it’s what allows us to float too.

So, let’s roll back to Noumea, mid 2017 and a visit to the Port Moselle Marina. A pair of idiots in pursuit of an endless summer surfing surfari docked on our marina finger. They proceeded to dismantle the power bollard because they didn’t have an appropriate power plug. In case you are wondering, it's a european one. In doing so, they blew the power to the entire marina finger. Sadly this was just minutes from us disconnecting ahead of departure and we didn’t even realise we had a big problem until a couple of days after. We were leaving already fully recharged and believed it to be a shore power issue. A few days later we discovered that our ‘smart charger’ had saved our entire boat electronics when it’s sacrificial fuses were blown by the ‘event’ at the marina.

  

Clever, clever charger!

Luckily, the Bloke was able to clean the carbon charring and replace the mini spade fuses. It was terribly annoying at the time as it required a return trip to Noumea. We thought we’d dodged a bullet but not indefinitely. It was evident that there was some damage to the fuse area when the fuses continued from time to time, to blow/melt. There was no clear pattern to it but we sort of understood that we were living on borrowed time and buying and re-buying replacement fuses would only take us so far before an inevitable and dreaded replacement. This is called 'Doing an Egyptian' and living in de-Nile.

 

2 pairs in under 30 mins is too much! 

 

On the bright side, should we replace our smart charger with a New Generation one, it will have a cycle for lithium batteries and could be a more powerful one too. Ours only has a 40amp capacity. We could replace it with a 60amp one which would enable faster charging. A win. If we ever decided to change over to lithium batteries, the charger would be one of the several control systems that would require upgrading. Yay, we’d be Lithium Ready! Double win.

A ‘boat unit’ however, is not easily parted with. When the fuse replacement regime was looking to no longer be viable, the smart charger needed a more serious looking at. Replacing the fuses twice in 20 minutes? Absolutely not viable! It was time to dismantle our bunk, remove panels, not merely lift them, and remove the charger to inspect the back of the board. Time to bite the bullet. The electrical tool box was already out, why not the “F” box as well?!

 

Amazingly, the Bloke was as calm as could be. He called for labels to be printed and photos to be taken to simplify exact restoration after everything had been taken to bits. Dismounting and dismantling the charger was revelatory. No wonder the bloomin’ thing was fusing all the time! What little brushes and such did we have to remove this gunk he asked? Plenty as it turned out and the best yet was the ‘Air Duster’ or can of compressed air.

 

Organisation required to conquer chaos

The before and after photos are the basis for great optimism. Fingers are crossed that we get to keep our ‘boat unit’ a while longer and the ‘F’ Box can stay holstered. We might have just outsmarted the ‘Smart Charger’. Now that’s truly winning!

Nothing like a blast of fresh air to clear things up

More Power To Us

Our 5 month trip to New Caledonia and Vanuatu highlighted that it would be a good thing to upgrade our power generation capacity. Existing capacity of a maximum of 9 amps during a sunny day committed us to running our generator for longer and more frequently than we wanted. Our solar panels would only keep up with refrigeration in daylight hours. Throw in navigation equipment or even lights and entertainment and the battery bank figures rapidly headed south. In anticipation of a solar power upgrade in the offing, the Bloke started ordering parts as soon as we'd arrived in Bundaberg from Vanuatu. The kids in Brisbane knew for sure we not long away from visiting them once parts for the project began arriving.

 

The new controller

A new 40amp controller from the 12Volt Shop was conveniently the 'Big Brother' of our existing controller and was selected because it had the same footprint as our existing one. It could also feed to our Orora digital display. That would circumvent a lot of messing about. The Bloke chose conventional rigid panels (2 x 200W) ones over flexible ones and knowing that the old ones would be impossible to remove from the Signex panel on top of our targa, he decided to simply mount the new ones over the top of the old.

Targa with signex panel

Doing all the work whist still in a marina was beneficial due to access to a chandlery for all the fixing bolts, lengths of wire and incidentals. What had the Bloke stumped though was how exactly he'd be able to lift the panels into place and do the fixing. We were secured in our pen bow first and his work area was above the transom and over water! He couldn't see a solution at first but once I'd suggested undoing the back section of the bimini, a brilliant slot opened up.

Clear air and space to work

The panels have been in operation for well over 1 month now and we declare them as a win. We are going longer between big charge days having more than doubled capacity from 9 to about 25 amps. While we aren’t getting 25 amp often (blame the rainy weather) we seem to manage 9 amps even when it’s overcast. Definitely winning!

What We Learned From Our Capsize on the Janet Anne

Doing a bit of a de-frag after our 000 rescue episode, we wanted to consider what we did wrong, and what in the circumstances we did right as well as what we could have done better.

Ready to Race 

 

We often joke about racers being shoppers. Competitive sailing involves pushing the margins and consequently stressing equipment and creating a well worn path to the chandlery, workshop and sail loft. As cruisers we follow very different and more conservative rules. We neither want to stress ourselves or our boat and our measure is “Will this spill our chardonnay?”.  Of course we don’t drink on passage but the principle is that we never want to be on such a heel that we’d be spilling wine. Racing creates another mindset altogether. Take risks. In land sports you’d call it “White line fever”. Oh yes, we were in the zone, white line fever for certain! WRONG for us. We didn’t know the Janet Anne well enough to be pushing her.

We learned several things. If a capsize happens quickly as it did for us in a small boat, the resources to which you have access to save you are the ones that are physically on your person. There will be scant time to collect stuff before you go over and little time to snatch at stuff as it floats away. Survival /safety gear needs to float but not necessarily away, hence a buoyant ‘Grab Bag’ of emergency stuff is helpful. On Zofia we have one. While the Janet Anne had all manditory safety stuff it was all attached to the boat and became unusable or inaccessible. The VHF radio was under water and no longer usable. We have a buoyant hand held VHF radio on Zofia as a back up to the fixed VHF radio. The EPIRB was clipped into a holder and was underwater. Although Zofia’s EPIRB is clipped to the hull in the cockpit too, we also have personal ones that we wear. Those were in Brisbane as we hadn’t traveled with any notion that we’d go sailing. Flares, despite being in a watertight container were also in an airtight compartment. Retrieval would compromise the integrity of our little floating pontoon. Zofia’s are in the Grab Bag.
Many people commented to us afterward, that it was lucky that we were wearing life jackets. Lucky? Hell NO! We pretty much always wear them! In that sense we created our own good luck. The age range of our crew was from 61-71. None of us are athletes, nor do we have gills, as the Bloke often points out, so staying afloat for any length of time without some form of floatation was not a proposition. Swimming 2nm to shore was not an option either.

"Wear a close fitting life jacket WITH a crotch strap!". That was the message Doug Abbott imparted after spending 3 hours in Bass Strait with the rest of his racing crew after their race yacht rapidly broke up and sank. Our own PFD's on Zofia do have crotch straps (we upgraded them for this very reason) but we were wearing borrowed life jackets. Luckily we had adjusted the fitting before we left the jetty by tightening the chest strap. Ladies probably have an advantage here as the strap sits below the breasts and the inflated jacket is less likely to ride up as much.

Thanks for sharing Doug Abbott!

Staying together and with the boat, which was not fully submerged, and a larger target than 3 small specks in the water, was helpful. In the end one of us was able to climb up and stand on it making us more visible above the waves. We were surprised that the rescue crew couldn’t see us as easily as we could see them.

Dress for your activity. Janet and I both wore a long sleeved synthetic sailing shirt against the skin and beneath our spray jackets. The Bloke was wearing a cotton one under his spray jacket and was less comfortable once immersed. We were acutely aware that we needed to keep warm giving us another reason to climb onto the hull and out of the water to delay the possibility of Hypothermia. Sharks were also front of mind !

You’ll be hard to spot. The brighter your clothing the better. We only had our more fashionable black ‘jetty walker’ spray jackets with us on our visit to Perth. All our serious red coloured sailing kit was aboard Zofia in Queensland. The bright yellow life jacket floatation tubes proved essential for the VMR crew to locate us. A mirror attached to a life jacket will be a low tech addition to our own life jackets. We’ll also be adding a small submersible torch with a flashing mode to our bum bags. We’d actually brought such a torch along but it was in a kit bag that floated away. Our own life jackets do have water activated lights attached (an opted for upgrade) but in daylight, they probably wouldn’t make much impact.

  

Selecting the PHONE function from the home screen 

does not deliver the user to the keypad!

A hand held waterproof floating VHF radio would have be an asset. Instead we had to rely on our phones. Smart phones are now so smart that the dialing function is a little buried. We’ll be adding ‘000’ to our favourites list to simplify making such a call in the future. All in all, our take home message is to take being on the water seriously - we were probably a bit too relaxed on this occasion.

Our 000 Call

It would be fair to say that our Geographe Bay Race Week campaign on the Janet Anne did not end well. Leaving the jetty for the final morning race on a short course, we believed we had great prospects. We had actually completed the short course on Day 3 and although the last in the fleet, this was only by a minutes margin. We were delighted when the Finish Boat sounded the horn and we think they were pleased about not having to wait for us to finish too because they gave us 3 toots for good measure. Keith and Mum were so delighted that afternoon that they met us on the jetty with a bottle of champagne on a silver tray!

 

Heading out with the race fleet

 

On Day 4 we sailed shorthanded while Jan drove Keith to Bunbury for an MRI. The race turned out to be a drifter taking us over 2 hours and 3 attempts just to get around the Day Buoy. For lack of wind, we drifted on the current for almost a 1/2 nm away from the that wretched buoy! Abandoning the race, we sought permission to have a practice run through the finish line. Once again they wouldn't be kept waiting for us.

The forecast for Day 5 was pretty good. Wind of about 18kts. The Janet Anne needed at least 12-15kts to get her going so we really thought we should be able to complete the race and who would know? On handicap we might look like contenders!

 

We discovered that if you got to the Start Boat early enough, 

they'd throw jelly snakes to eat. YUM!

The end of the iconic Busselton Jetty 1.8 km or 1nm long!

We had plenty of excitement at the start line among the fleet in our Jib and Main division and all the argie bargie that entails. Furthermore, the division that had started ahead of us had 'broken' and were recalled to start once again 5 minutes after us. We tried to be the least interference we could to 'proper' racers but try as we did, a couple of boats were forced to give way to us. We were in the thick of it for the 2nd time within 15 minutes and that had our blood fairly pumped. We got around the Day Buoy without incident and then headed out to seaward to Marker 9 with the wind behind us. The forecast was accurate and we were in a solid 18kts of breeze with up to 1m of fetch. Geographe Bay is in the lee of Cape Naturaliste so there isn't any swell as such but there was a bit of chop as we got further from shore (about 2nm).

Our track on approach to Marker 9

The Bloke was careful to check how we girls felt about the race at each stage. Did we feel comfortable to go on etc? We agreed that we felt just fine, a little wet, but fine. We were actually sort of keeping our fleet in sight. We timed them going around Marker 9 about 20-25 minutes ahead of us. We were certainly on a PB.  I activated the Navionics App on approach to Marker 9 since I'd dropped a marker pin for it's GPS a few days earlier. We needed confirmation of the buoy position once the last of the boats had gone around it as it was otherwise a bit hard to spot. As usual the buoy came up fast once clearly visible and we executed a tidy tack at approximately 11:05.

We were going along nicely and occasionally having water come over the gunnels. This was  mostly pumped away but once we were on the wind, a bit more water was accumulating in the stern. Sitting to leeward in case we needed to release the jib, my foot was in an ankle deep puddle. A stronger gust of wind caught us out and being unable react and to release the main fast enough, we shipped a bigger wave which caused us to heel further and actually scoop yet more water than could reach the bilge sumps. Oops we were pulled over by the weight of the water at around 11:15.

Sensing that the Janet Anne would likely overturn The Bloke ordered us to be clear of the boom and any rigging, including floating ropes that might entangle us, and prepare to be in the water. We were in the water in a heartbeat. Once we had each found a sheet (rope) to hold onto and not drift away from the boat, we activated our life jacket toggles. All 3 lift jackets which had been suitably tightened ahead of the race, inflated without delay or incident. Doug Abbott, a fellow cruiser, had once been fished out of Bass Strait after 3 hours and in sharing his story had stressed the importance of life jackets having a snug fit and preferably to have a crotch strap too. We remembered Dougie's story and had adjusted Jan's floppy vest ahead of Race 1. Unfortunately the boat's EPIRB was still attached in it’s bracket next to the tiller and VHF Radio. Both were on the side that was in the water.  Flares were in a water tight compartment but also only accessible under water. In any case, the watertight compartment was helping keep the Janet Anne from sinking. We hoped we wouldn't need to reconsider those.

 

This pouch has saved my phone on a couple 'swims'.

 

Fortunately my mobile phone was in a waterproof pouch around my neck. I thought I'd be taking photo's!  Janet also had a phone in a waterproof satchel in an internal pocket of her spray jacket.  We considered that as a back-up since it was wedged to her body by her now inflated life jacket. We needed to call for help. 000 was a first instinct. I climbed up on what turned out to be the rudder, so I could remove the phone from the pouch and make the call as quickly as I could in case the boat sank. A wet phone was of no help. At 11:17 we made a 000 call. The screen was difficult to see inside the pouch and through wet spectacles. The call was made one-handed while hanging on to a slippery boat and trying to avoid getting the iPhone wet or dropping it. Answering questions made by the 000 call operator was impossible. Knowing emergency calls are recorded I just gave information that the vessel the Janet Anne was capsized in Geographe Bay in the vicinity of Race Mark 9 in Geographe Bay Race Week and that there were 3 people in the water all with deployed life jackets. I hung up to save battery power. The iPhone was replaced in the pouch to preserve it.

Naturally our call was returned at 11:19 but at this stage the phone could not be answered as we were trying to manage ourselves onto the hull. This was followed by another call at 11:22. We guessed that this was a call to attempt verification and to get more detail.

We spent some more minutes getting Jan up onto the keel and then higher and out of the water since she’d cut her legs on the keel barnacles. We wanted minimum blood in the water as well as to reduce immersion time. Lucky for us the water was quite warm. Managing the phone inside the pouch was difficult but eventually I managed to find the ‘Favourites’ list. Accessing the number/ keypad or to return missed calls on ‘Messages’ was attempted but unsuccessful! By 11:27 I called Lucas in Brisbane (call duration 27 seconds). He didn’t answer. In fumbling, I then accidentally called Mum recording a 4 minute "pocket call". Mum did not respond of course because she was in Busselton with Keith!

At 11:32 after more fumbling and hanging on, I called Amy who was also in Brisbane, dialing via the ‘Favourites’ list knowing she was home, I asked her to phone 000, tell authorities that we were in Geographe a Bay etc as per initial 000 call and confirming 3 crew were in the water but were uninjured. Call duration 19 seconds. Our thinking was that by asking for a second 000 to be made it would confirm that our earlier call was not a hoax.

At 11:34 still fumbling with the iPhone one handed, I made a repeat pocket style call to Mum and cancelled it, also making an accidental call to Roger. Oh dear, having the phone in the pouch made things very difficult. My hands weren't too steady either. Luckily Lucas returned my call at 11:34 (champion!) so I asked him to call 000 and relay our information. He phoned 000 on a land-line and relayed questions. I then also asked Lucas to immediately call Keith as he would know who to call at the GBYC Race Week control tower. We wanted E V E R Y O N E that would listen, to know that help was needed!

Our Navionics track commenced about 5-10 minutes ahead of our rounding of Buoy 9 and concluded on our safe return to Keith's jetty.

There were a couple of incoming calls during the next 10 minutes but it was impossible to answer. By this time we had spotted the VMR vessel tasked with the job of retrieving #9 Race Marker and I was standing on top of the upturned and bucking hull, supported by a tensioned rope and waiving furiously, hoping to attract attention. We had heard on race radio (Ch77) some 5-10 mins before we rounded Mark 9, that  race control believed that all vessels had already rounded the buoy and that it could be retrieved. They were wrong of course. We were confident that so long as our message was relayed to this vessel that they would find us quite soon. We found out later that the VMR crew had been informed of a capsized yacht near the race mark but they reported back that there was nothing to be seen. Yikes! Race control told them to look harder as there been three 000 calls. In the sea-state a small white boat with a blue bottom creates the smallest imaginable profile. The bright yellow of the inflated life vest tubes were our best chance of being seen and that yellow needed to be as high up as we could make it - at least as high as a race buoy and above the waves!

The Bloke inspecting and deflating those great life vests. Job done!

It seemed like the VMR boat would never turn to face in our direction but eventually they headed for us. We were fortunate that the conditions were not too wild and catching the hauling-line not too difficult. Jan was the first to be yanked out and The Bloke the last. By the time we'd been safely transferred, a second VMR vessel had arrived and they took on the job of towing in the poor Janet Anne. Flotsam was already drifting off with the current....floor boards, spare ropes, cushions, an esky containing fruit AND significantly, some of Mum's Christmas cake ... darn it!

Anything and everything that was unsecured had drifted off including the floorboards and engine housing. The EPIRB was still in it's holder though!

Forlorn and sitting at her jetty, the Janet Anne awaits the Insurance Assessor.

As soon as we were aboard we called Keith at 12:03 to reassure him (and Mum) that we were all safely aboard the VMR vessel and could he please notify Lucas and Amy so they would not worry unnecessarily for any longer. It's probably 45 minutes that we'll remember for a while. And so ended the Janet Anne's tilt at glory in Geographe Bay Race Week.

Jan's small lacerations

We are immensely grateful to the volunteers that serve the marine community along our shores: in this instance to Busselton Volunteer Marine Rescue. To them we owe our happy ending.

  Sharing a drink and a hug with long time golfing buddy Fastie,  and calming the nerves after all that!

On a sad note, 12 hours later and 50 nautical miles to our north in the vicinity of Cape Bouvard (our old sailing grounds before we sailed for Eastern shores) another boat capsize played out quite differently following a keel loss. The skipper and one crew on a well known WA ocean racing boat, SV Finestere, died racing in the Fremantle to Bunbury and return race . The remaining 4 crew were rescued in the middle of the night and in difficult conditions. Life is a fragile state and can end in sudden and unpredictable ways. Live it full and live it well!

Where Did We Go?

You would be forgiven to think we fell off the planet. Well, not quite. We returned to Perth for the Christmas period and planned to be back on Zofia by the beginning of February. But you know that.....

"Plans should always be written in the sand at low tide". 

Dressed to impress

In this case, the tide came in and washed them away. My brother asked us to stay for Geographe Bay Race Week in Busselton and sail with him and sister-in-law Janet, aboard their gaff-rigged Couta boat replica - the Janet Anne. She was last sailed in this event in 2013, the year we departed southward and eastward aboard Zofia. This was an opportunity too good to miss, so here we are in Busselton preparing for a week of racing and perhaps the odd beer, two or three.

Shirt presentations to Janet and Keith

Pre-racing information and registration evening at Geographe Bay Yacht Club

Team hats.

We'll be out on the Bay for a long time participating in the Jib and Main division.