I left Beauty Point on Sunday 29 March, five months after Sunny Spells went up on the hard at the TYC slipyard. It was getting late in the season for the east coast, but a window opened so I took it.
Beauty Point, Tomahawk, St Helens, Coles Bay, Orford, then the canal at Dunalley and into the Channel. Four days of sailing, three nights waiting on a bridge, 264 miles.
The tides were perfect for it. Full moon springs, with high water early morning and again in the evening, bookending each day. That matters for Georges Bay, where you want all the water you can get over the bar. By the time I reached Dunalley a week later high tide had moved to the early afternoon, which suited the canal run exactly. I did not plan any of that.
Sunday: Beauty Point to Tomahawk Island
Out of the Tamar and east along the north coast. Long stretches under engine, so I went round the boat with the Teflon spray and did every block, car and sheave I could reach.
Once the flood started the head current was 2 knots. Fortunately by that stage it was blowing 20 knots from behind, so 9 knots boat speed was still 7 over the ground.
The new wireless windlass remote went in during the refit, so I could anchor without walking back and forth a dozen times. It worked very well. I still missed my anchor crew. 5m of water, 40m of chain. I was going to put out 30, but I miscounted the markers, which alternate at 90 degrees and take some getting used to.
Tomahawk was a great tip. It was blowing 20 knots where I dropped the main, and less than 8 in the anchorage with just the slightest swell coming round the island.
The question tormenting all of Tomahawk that evening was whether I would jump into the 18 degree water for my shower. I did.
Monday: Tomahawk to St Helens
Weighed at 07:47 and motored east in nothing much.
Just as I passed Eddystone the wind went up to 18-25 knots and looked like it was going to stay there. Two reefs plus 75% genoa and still doing 8 knots. It was a little hectic turning into 25 knots on my own to get the main down. Trip max of 12 knots boat speed just before I reefed, which tells you I left it a bit late. The reefing cars were smooth as strawberry wine. That’s the Teflon.
Round the corner the wind dropped back to 12-18 and we settled into a 6 knot average, ETA 16:30.
Chatted with VMR St Helens on the way in. Young South African chap on the radio, which I was not expecting…
The bar was fine this time.
Then I promptly ran aground looking for the first anchoring spot. Slowly, because it looked shallow. Looks like they dumped the dredger spoil there. Mystery solved a minute later when I remembered the depth is shown below the transducer, not the keel. I ran aground at 1.2m.
Further in it’s lovely. Went over the side for a snorkel on the prop, which had been vibrating since somewhere near Swan Island. There was tons of kelp in the water through that passage. Well and truly wrapped around the hub, and a huge forest of it at the top of the rudder. There’s 1.2 knots of current running through there, so I had to paddle flat out just to get from the transom to the sail drive.
That was quite a lot of kelp. Same bay, sixteen years apart.
The last time I crossed that bar
February 2010, single-handing a 1982 Carter 33. An IOR three-quarter tonner, which is a boat designed to go round buoys rather than to be pointed at breaking water by a tired man.
I called Tamar Sea Rescue that morning to ask about the state of the bar, keeping Flinders Island as an option if it was impassable. They called St Helens, who said they would not give instructions but would send a rescue boat out to lead me across.
I felt reasonably comfortable about it as the day went on, having done several bar crossings in the previous couple of years, some in breaking surf. By 1500 it was blowing 25 knots from the north-east directly onto the bar and I was dog tired. They had also said they would inspect the bar and only take me through if conditions were safe, and the chances of that were going down with the rising wind. I could not bear the thought of another 10 hours sailing in the dark to get to Wineglass Bay.
The rescue RIB came out within minutes of my arrival in Georges Bay and they were not happy. The tide was late, still rising, and the bar was breaking in a mass of white water.
What I remember saying on the radio, more or less, was “if I get thrown on my beam ends and I’m in the water, will you come and get me?” The answer was “yes, of course”, to which my reply was “I’m coming in!”
We agreed I would cross at my own risk. Sails down, lifejacket on, boat closed up in case we got swamped or rolled. Then going for the bar I felt a lot of vibration and realised I’d picked up kelp on the prop. Stopped the engine, put her in reverse to fold the prop, restarted, gunned her astern and felt the familiar smooth running. Then full throttle behind the rescue boat. I only surfed down one breaking wave and then we were in the calm water of the river, bumping past Pelican Point in slightly less than 6ft, following them the whole way.
I wrote it up at the time, here.
They are volunteers and entirely self-funded. Chatting to Ian Hollingsworth at the base afterwards I was amazed to learn they help around 100 boats a year, two or three a week, sometimes towing from over 100 miles out.
I stayed a week that time, moored to the jetty, drinking with other boaties in the evenings and chatting to Ian during the day. Fond memories. That’s how I ended up running their website, which I have done ever since.
Tuesday: St Helens to Coles Bay
One of the quietest nights ever. Wind was zero knots when I went to bed around 22:00 and the boat did not rock in the slightest. Glad I went that far up Georges Bay.
Woken at 05:00 by wind howling through the rigging. 15-20 knots easterly. Not even the detailed 2 day BOM model had shown it. By 07:00 it was down to the forecast 5 knots NW, and by breakfast I had 3-4 knots TWS.
Sailed for about 20 minutes when I had 8 knots on the beam from the west, a land breeze. After that full main and about 33% of the #2 genoa, motor-sailing at 6.7 knots. Very flat, just the long period SE groundswell and even that less than a metre.
Through the Schouten Passage around 18:00 and anchored at Bryans Beach by sunset, under the Hazards, two other boats already in.
Wednesday to Saturday: Orford
Poked up Spring Bay towards Triabunna first to have a look, then took one of the three MAST moorings off Shelley Beach.
Three nights there, waiting for a window through the Denison Canal.
The change, when it came, was quite violent. Went from nothing to 30 knot westerly gusts in minutes with heavy rain, lasted about 30 minutes, then slowly cleared. Then it was very nice again.
One of the boats anchored on the other side came in eventually. Heather Anne, I think. They took another of the MAST moorings. Still one empty. Then there’s half a dozen boats on private moorings, and two or three dozen empty or abandoned ones.
Maria was watching me on MarineTraffic from home and reported a veritable convoy of boats leaving Hobart on the Friday, heading for the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Easter, I guess.
I spent the time on the phone to the canal and reading the MAST information properly. That has its own post.
Easter Saturday: the canal, and Lime Bay
Cast off at 08:29 and had the sails up by 08:45 in a light nor’wester down Mercury Passage.
I was booked for the Sunday but the tide looked right on the Saturday, so I went through a day early. Anchor down at Lime Bay at 14:58. Seabird was already there.
Next morning I weighed at 06:51, out past the Iron Pot and south-west into the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. Anchor down in the Duck Pond at the top of Bruny by midday. I was planning on two nights.
The numbers
264 miles over the ground from Beauty Point to the far side of the canal. 131 under sail, 133 under engine. Best of 9.8 knots SOG.
The six weeks in the Channel that followed ran 51 miles of sail to 160 of engine, which is a different kind of sailing altogether.
On going alone
The sailing is not the hard part. The hard part is that everything which used to be two jobs at once now happens one after the other. You reef while the boat looks after herself. You anchor with a remote in one hand and nobody counting chain at the bow. You go over the side into a knot of current to clear a prop with nobody on deck, and that last one is worth thinking about properly beforehand.
It all takes about three times as long, and you plan it or you do not do it.
*Sunny Spells is a Bavaria 44, sailed by Gerhard Malan. The marine electronics work is at scadys.io.*