After the refit  “Lady Windermere” crossed the Tasman arriving in Coffs Harbour in April 1997.   A leisurely cruise of the Queensland coast as far as Dunk Island was followed in 1998 by entry in the Tall Ships race – Sydney to Hobart.

Returning to Auckland to carry out further work on the vessel we also, that year, did a circumnavigation of the North Island and a further trip to Fiji.

The following year there was a trip to New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands.    On leaving Caledonia we were only a day out when the starter motor failed.    Unable to fix it the skipper insisted we continue sailing and with no wind we drifted for three weeks as far as Lord Howe Island before finally being able to sail up the west coast of New Zealand and around to the customs dock at Opua.     After another trip to Fiji I decided it was time to return to Australia and finally settled in Hastings where I had first started my sailing career.

Bay of Islands

                        

Still wishing to sail I joined the Hastings Yacht Club and bought a sailing dinghy but then welcomed an offer by Rob Allica, a club member, to crew on a trip down the west coast of Tasmania.

The following is his account of the trip.

  Dismasted and all at sea

 

Ocean Blue was dismasted in 15 knots of breeze.  Helga and I retreated to Stanley to salvage all the gear and to sort out the mess.  The cap shroud and the shroud to the upper of the two spreaders exploded at the roll swage at deck level and the mast came down with a bang.  But this is to get ahead of myself.

 

On the way down we had sailed overnight to Three Hummocks Island and had spent about 3 days dodging from bay to bay as the wind changed, waiting for a weather window down the West Coast.

 

Then it came.  We had a small window to get to Strahan which involved negotiating the passage to the south of Hunter Island getting out into the west coast on a forecast dying southerly.  The plan was to beat into the wind until we had the forecast 36 hours of easterly.  But when we got out we could barely able to beat against the weather and as the night came on it reached gale force and we hove to under storm jib only near Cape Grim. We spent the night traveling between the coast and the Pyramid.  The boat’s performance was superb.  Unattended she sat always on the one tack, helm lashed down.  In spite of the breaking seas she pointed up at about 45⁰ to the run of he waves but traveled at 2 knots with lots of leeway.  In the light of the crescent moon the malevolent black shape of the Pyramid would loom and require a gybe so that largely she went back along her outgoing track towards the Doughboys; then gybe again.  We did this 5 times during the night.  In the morning we were spent and the wind still blew south very strongly and so we retreated again to Three Hummocks around the top of Hunter Island going off shore from the huge sand bank is in constant tumult.  It has waves that are huge.

 

We passed a night at the Hummocks and the new forecast was for 2 days of SW (unsuitable to a trip to Strahan) and we decided to have a spell in Stanley and on the way there we had the mishap.

 

The mast came down at the lower crosstrees, but the lowers held and the stub of the mast was leaning back at 45 degrees with the mast and sails in the water.  With a block and tackle to the spinnaker ring I pulled the mast stub straight and winched the mast head up to the pushpit.  At the he top of the stub, the halyards and the electricals held the broken mast.  The mast step was smashed and the foot of the mast required much lashing into position.  We cut all the slides on the main and released the piston hanks on the headsail and got both aboard with little or no damage.  We tidied up as best we could all the loose wire on the deck and set of under our own power to Stanley.

 

I notified Mary at Smithton Coast guard that we had been dismasted, that we had salvaged all gear were making our way under our own power to Stanley.  I requested that she arrange a berth in Stanley, which she did.  Mary runs the most amazing VHF radio network from her lounge room.  All the local fisherman call in at 0600 and 1700 and give positions.  The local gossip extends for some time at the end of the Sched.  The net sounds folksy to say the least.  However I heard Mary organize a rescue for a Sandringham boat that had lost its rudder east of KI.  The rescue system works.

 

We met the local fishermen on St Patrick’s night in the pub.  They had heard my transmission reporting our dismasting and were welcoming.  These men who spend large parts of their life surviving the weather off the West Coast I hold in high regard.  They on the other hand reckon yachtsmen are brave or insane, sailing such light boats with tiny auxiliaries.  And so I think the admiration is mutual if unequal.

 

I am filled with the greatest sense of relief that the mishap happened when it did and not on the night spent hove to, when, we would have had to cut the whole rig adrift and when conditions were so bad that we would have had a real possibility of catastrophic hull damage in the rough conditions.

 

In Stanley we spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday disassembling the whole mast and stowed it below. The mast had to be hack sawed into three sections and the mast stub stabilized for the trip home.  The jury rig for the fore and back stays was a lump of 16 mm rope.  Over 30 hours we motor sailed home under jury rig.  The biggest sails we could set were the storm canvases which were deck hugging.