MorningBird said...
Great fun then, but I wouldn't like to be on the S&S34 in the seas on the youtube video.
As a first term Mobi I was given the usual "sea indoctination" trip on Sydney which in 1966 was a week or two from Port Jackson to Jervis bay and back and I went for'ard to watch the greenies spouting up the hawse pipes and loved it.
Queenborough was travelling in company with us and behaving more like surface travelling submarine than a corvette (that is what she was isn't it?) and I thought at the time "That would be fun steering her right now."
I have never been at sea during a cyclone or typhoon but I vividly recall as second Tiff on Barbette having to brace my knee and hand against the deckhead to prevent myself from falling out of my top bunk and that was inside the reef!!
In 1979 I crewed on a trans Tasman from Fiji to Sydney during which we transited the gap between Lord Howe and Middleton Reef.
This was my self qualifying trip to find out if I really wanted to continue with this yachting life thing.
The Yacht was called "New Morning" and was a British built "Phillip 43" which had a very similar hull form to the S&S 34 (think names and numbers
) and was being professionaly delivered by a a guy by the name of Phil Wade and his wife Sue plus whatever crew the picked up along the way which for that leg happened to be me.
It was a great learning experience for myself. Phil Wade was a Master I and annually was sailing master for the Brazilians in the Admiral's Cup after which he would deliver their yacht back home via Antigua Race week.
So during our transit of the gap between Lord Howe and Middleton Reef we were in a 50 knot gale with some fairly big seas and beating with storm jib only, Mr Airies doing the steering and the watch on deck trying to keep a decent lookout.
The undersea mountains in this area cause very steep seas at times and butash just happened to have the midnight watch that night. With foul weather gear on and harness clipped we cop three greenies in a row that fill the cockpit (maybe a ton of water each time) and you can just feel the yacht dragging it self out of it each time.
I hear the fourth one coming and it is breaking and I know it is the tester. Up and over she goes 180 degrees. As it is happening I grab the stoutest line (jib sheet as it happened) and think " If it is topsy turtle more than 30 seconds, I am letting go and taking my chances in the briney."
It is the black of night but everything went white and roared. The wine glass yacht she is said "Yep." and came back up again with stick unbroken but everything atop it gone (VHF ariel, tri light). I regain my senses and see the soft pack liferaft from under the athwartships aft cockpit seat has gone over the stern and is doing it's automatic inflation thing due to it being still attached by the painter line. I try to drag it back aboard.
It being a southerly and us heading west, we were on a port tack.
Phil, resting, not sleeping, in the port settee berth, and being 6'2'' tall with an athletes build weighing about 100 kg, dropped about 10 feet across the cabin landing on his 50 kg wife nearly killing her, then called out to me "Are you alright up there?"
I replied "Yeah, but you better give me a hand to pull the life raft back onboard!!" The whips were definitely cracking.
So the master of the vessel presented on deck in his pyjama pants, made a very quick assessment and said "See if you can get the life raft back and I will attend to the vessel." or words to that effect.
The yacht is getting knocked by the swell causing slack in the painter line which allows me to pull it in close nearly to the point of grabbing it's side lifelines at which point the wind makes the yacht sail forward again so I ease the painter out with tension knowing that if I just let it go there will be a snapperama.
This happens four times but on the last I am easing the line onto the taff rail and snapperama happens. Luckily I did not wrap the line around any fingers as it would have taken them off. When it snapped it just lifted the skin off my fingers and palm and sounded like a gunshot.
We dropped sail to ease the motion; the Master made an estimate of our position using chart dead reckoning and Radio Direction Finder bearing from Lord Howe Island to determine if we were clear of Middleton Reef to leeward with sea room to lay ahull.
This being confirmed to the best of our capabilities, we lashed the helm and lay ahull for a day and a half with the duty watch required to poke his/her head out of the hatch hourly to see if we were about to be run over by a cargo ship.
In response to your comment John:-
Great fun then, but I wouldn't like to be on the S&S34 in the seas on the youtube video.
I don't think anybody would LIKE to be on any vessel in those kind of seas but if you were aboard a well managed S&S 34 (as I am sure your's is), I do believe you would be fairly safe. That's gotta be one of the major reasons why Morning Bird is yours.
