Sailing Around Australia; The salvage of Wendera; Inspiration or Madness?

Esperance Port from Bandy Creek Boat Harbour, with birds.

17/1/2014 Location; tied on to service Jetty, Bandy Creek Boat harbour, Esperance Western Australia

While tied on at Bandy Creek Boat Harbour in Esperance on our Sailing Around Australia adventures B1, Maree, Leanne and I met Ray Jaarola. Ray offered to come over to show us his videos and tell us the story of his salvage of the Spirit 380 Catamaran named Wendera.

In 2008 Paul Cochrane and his mate Chris, a boat builder, built a catamaran. It was a Spirit 380 designed by well known catamaran designer Craig Shionning. From all reports, it was well built, tastefully finished off and greatly admired.

After completing the boat, Paul, his wife and children set off from Newcastle in New South Wales. They sailed around Australia eventually ending up in the Mandurah Marina, where they met Brian (B1) and Maree and Brian (B2) and Eva.

With their young family growing, Paul and his wife decided to settle in WA and put their children into high school, so Wendera was put on to the market.

People from the east coast of Australia purchased Wendera. Contrary to all advice and definitely against Paul's wishes, the new owners packed up and set off to the eastern states  aboard Winderra, within days of the sale being settled.

It is not absolutely sure how, but the boat was capsized somewhere south of Kangaroo Island South Australia. Some say that the boat hit a semi submerged sea container, while other’s say it was put side on to a massive swell, but either way it ended up upside down and the three people on board had to be rescued.

Amazingly the boat drifted for many months upside down, until it was located in the Southern Ocean, near the middle of the Great Australian Bight. Salvage rights were claimed by a cray fisherman who works in the area.

Ray Jaarola lives in Esperance WA on the western side of the Great Australian Bight. He has been involved in boats, diving and fishing most of his life. His father was a commercial diver who worked in the Geraldton area.

For many years, Ray had dreamt of owning a nice sailing catamaran and using it to take him to the old haunts his father used to work. Areas like the Abrohlis Islands off the Geraldton coast.

When news of Wendera and it’s salvage found Ray, he was immediately interested. He had some money tucked away from his work as an underground miner and saw this as his chance to get the catamaran that he had dreamt of.

Ray made an offer to the crayfisherman for Wendera, which by this time was upside down on a desolate beach some 900 kilometres to the east of Ray’s home town.

The true inspiration in this story comes from Ray’s determination to bring his boat home, repair it and live the sailing life.

It is hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would endure 13 or more trips 900 kilometres one way, with a band of mates Ray paid to attempt to get the catamaran right way up, then to refloat it.

One such attempt involved going out there with a frontend loader and trying to dig a pile of sand around the catamaran. Then lifting it over. This attempt failed and burnt up more of Ray’s life savings.

Each time he arrived at the site, he would be overwhelmed at the sight of the work they had done previously, needing to be done again.  The sea continually brought in tonnes of weed, weaving it into a mat and covering the boat each time it was left. On each trip the first 2 days on site were spent digging the matted weed off the boat.

Also, he would be demoralised by the work of vandals, thieves and low lives that continued to ransack and vandalise his dream in his absence. Every time he returned to the boat more precious items had been removed and in that removal more damage had been done.

Almost as a last ditch effort, Ray got help from an Esperance Crane operator. Greens Crane Hire, Brad took the crane all the way out to the beached catamaran. They then had to find a suitable track down to the beach and had to pack underneath the crane to stop it toppling over. They then had to carefully and slowly lift the front of the catamaran, all the time frightened that the fiberglass structure would simply crack, crumble and fall into pieces on top of them.

After several attempts at lifting, then re-rigging the lifting ropes and operating the crane at absolute maximum capacity in soft beach sand, Wendera was finally lifted high enough out of the sand, turned and placed down on the beach, right side up.

A fisherman friend of Rays offered to bring his special towboat out and towed Wendera back to Esperance. That would be a six day round trip for Ray, his brother and Steve McWhirter, the owner of the towboat.  By the time they got the tow under way, Ray had ran out of provisions and his foot infection was worsening.

Ray had to endure, two and a half days aboard what was basically 2 hulls connected by the bridgedeck, that was absolutely pounded from one wave to the next. The hull of Wendera also swayed violently from side to side as there were no rudders or keels to stabilize it during this trip.

His water pumps gave up early on and he drove himself to the point of utter exhaustion trying to bail water manually and continually for two days and nights.

Sleeping, eating or even finding somewhere on board that was dry were all impossible. Ray ended up going without sleep for 48 hours, living on adrenalin alone. The adrenalin being fed by thinking that any minute, on the next wave or the next sideways swing the boat would fall apart and he would be in the sea waiting for the tow boat to rescue him.

To his utter relief and with a mixture of elation, exhaustion, relief and success, Wendera was tied to the service jetty at Bandy Creek Boat harbour in Esperance on Christmas Eve 2012.

The personal cost to Ray has been far more than just financial. The infection that Ray got on one of his early trips out to his boat, worsened to the point he had to have his big toe amputated. Today Ray is still hobbling around with his foot in bandages.

We found Ray now living on board Wendera, which is on the hard stand under tarps. Ray is finding out the hard way and the expensive way, that to rebuild Wendera is a project equal to or maybe greater in magnitude than salvaging the boat from the Great Australian Bight.

To do it in Esperance which is some 750kilometres from expertise, parts and resources only makes it that much harder. While his mates and local contacts have been fantastic in helping him out, those from the far away city with the expertise that he really needs have done nothing but rip him off.

So, Inspiring or madness? It’s easy to judge and say he must have been or maybe still is a bit mad, for tackling such a project.  But, maybe a little bit of madness can make the most inspiring dream come true.

Bandy Creek Boat Harbour. Easy Tiger and Urchin masts at the bottom right. Wendera under tarps  is in the middle background.

Easy Tiger and Urchin tied up among the fishing boats.

Esperance Bay looking east, as we will soon be doing.

Sailing Around Australia; The Art of Doing Nothing

16/1/201 Location; Tied on to service jetty, Bandy Creek boat harbour, Esperance Western Australia

Since leaving Mandurah on our Sailing Around Australia Adventure aboard Easy Tiger, many people 

that we have met ask me the same question “what do you do all day?” or “don’t you get bored?”

To be honest, I haven’t even had time to sit and think about it.  Prior to setting sail Leanne and I had jobs with a fair deal of responsibility and pressure. Leanne was doing sales and quoting at Spencer Signs and my job was Port Hedland Supervisor at a transport company. I was responsible for coordinating and supervising more than 70 employees and over 20 million dollars worth of assets. As second in charge, for 2 weeks out of 3 that I was on site I was on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It was not unusual to get between 6 to a dozen phone calls during the night and normal hours were 5 in the morning until 6 or 7 pm.

 In between leaving that job and our departure from Mandurah marina, I did feel a sort of displacement and I did wonder whether I had become irrelevant.

My phone went to ringing about once a week, not every 5 minutes and the only decisions I had to make were what to have for lunch or what to do each day. The idea that I might get a little bored was actually quite appealing.

Now that we are 2 months into our sailing adventure, I have found that there are still many decisions to be made. Just that they are different types of decisions with different types of ramifications. As well, a certain amount of routine is necessary. Whether we are in a remote anchorage or we are in a harbour near a town, we do have a routine to complete each day and many decisions still need to be made.

For example here in Esperance, we are moored to the service jetty at the Bandy Creek boat harbour, in amongst the fishing boats. The Bandy Creek Boat harbour is about 6 to 10 kilometres out of town. Brian and Maree on Urchin are here with us, while Brian and Eva on Zofia are moored at the Yacht club within easy walking distance to town.

This meant that the first item on the agenda yesterday was to organise a hire car, so that the many trips to town and back we will require can be done with the least hassle, cost or obligation.

Then it was into town for a small food shop, a visit to 2 dive and fishing shops to buy a replacement fishing rod and filleting knives while looking at air tanks and dive systems for anchor retrieval, followed by the cafe for morning tea with Brian and Eva and visiting the slipway owner’s property (He’s a fellow catamaran owner) for an expertly brewed coffee. After that it was stowing all purchased goods, purchasing fish from one of the shark fishing boats, divvying up, vacuum packing and stowing the fresh fish into our freezer. Time was also spent chatting with a local guy who is rebuilding a wrecked catamaran, while scrubbing bird poo and other dirt spots off our front deck. By then it was evening, Leanne and Maree cooked up a meal, I cleaned and tidied the boat and we hosted 8 for dinner and drinks that went till 11pm. Not bad for a “recovery” day at the harbour.

If we are on anchor somewhere like the beautiful Two Peoples Bay, we need to constantly keep an eye on the weather. We need to decide if the boat should be re anchored somewhere different to hide from changing weather conditions. We need to constantly check that the anchor is holding. We need to keep an eye on our resources such as electricity, where we need to decide whether to put the generator on, or to move the boom in order to maximize the charge received from our solar panels. Also we need to keep up supply of fresh water.

As we found in Bremer Bay, it can take a large part of the day to replenish the fresh water supply on the boat, especially if this is done with the assistance of B2. That’s because you have the obligatory visit to the bakery to combine with the water collection. We use half a dozen jerry cans, that must be taken by dinghy to shore, carried to the water source, filled, then back to the dinghy, back to the boat and poured into the water tanks on board. Then if the boat tanks are not full, a second round has to be done and then a round to refill the jerry cans, which are stowed full in the locker on board as an emergency supply. We try to do this wherever we find a good (and close by) supply of fresh water, as we don’t really know the where or when the next adequate supply will be.

Also, if we are on anchor, the simple act of getting to shore can be a twenty minute activity by the time we get our dinghy prepared, untied and pulled up on to the beach.

No matter where we are, Leanne and I like to go for a long walk each day and have had the odd “game” of Frisbee with the Urchin crew, which is a good way of getting exercise and blowing out the rust.

Interestingly, I am finding the “down time” is when we are sailing, such as our 18hours trip from Hopetoun to Esperance. Once we get the sails up and set our course we are then passengers, letting the autopilot, the sails and the boat do the work. During daylight sailing I do like to constantly adjust with the sails to see if we can maximize the performance of Easy Tiger within the available wind. We then have keep a look out for other boats or other obstacles, watch the instruments, the wind direction and strength, while making sure we follow our planned course.

During a nighttime sail, we bring the sails down to between half and 3 quarters to just maintain steady, safe progress. This is when we totally rely on instruments only as we can’t see ahead of us in the dark. There is the odd hazard marker light or the lights of the other boats, but these are only moderate comfort because the distances are very hard to judge.

The other night Leanne did the first shift of three hours, then I did six hours up until 1.00am. During this time that it was a battle to keep awake and alert. I tried plenty of mental games, plus some Pink Floyd full bore on the Ipod, then I had some racing action during being overtaken (under yellow flag conditions, protest lodged) by our 2 sailing companions. That was just enough stimulation to get me through until Leanne came on for her 4 hour shift.

During Leanne’s turn at Skipper, I was trying to get to sleep while lying in a bunk that resembled riding a galloping pony, surrounded by the weird and wonderful noises of the ocean slapping and bumping on the hull.

At 4 .am I came back and did the next 4 hours. While seriously fatigued I managed some superior navigation tactics that saw us arriving into Esperance in a dead heat with Zofia.

We made our way over to the small boat harbour and by the time we got tied on, booked in and had our sailing gear packed away, the locals had lined up for a chat and look at the 2 boats. After that was sorted it was well after midday and Leanne and I fell into bed for the afternoon, sick with fatigue.

At the moment the Bandy Creek Boat harbour seems like it will be home for a week or more, as we recover from the three weeks of bobbing up and down on the anchorages we have stayed at.

We will restock, replenish and renew all on board here at Esperance, so that will keep us quite busy. As will collecting the mail and a few items that we have had sent to the Esperance post office, cleaning the boat and readying ourselves for the big one, the trip across the great Australian Bight. There is also emailing and bill paying (that never goes away).

It might also be nice to find some time to actually have a look around Esperance. This town is truly beautiful, has the whitest beaches in Australia and the proudest locals.

Of course there is keeping up with this blog, which I hear many of you enjoy. I am greatful for the nice feedback.

 I certainly hope somewhere in the next week, before we plan to set off again, I can find some time to practice the art of doing nothing.  

Urchin and the Barrens with a storm approaching.

Only the Windsurfers enjoyed our last evening at Hopetoun.

Zofia underway from Hopetoun to Esperance

Sailing Around Australia; Adventure and Anxiety

12/1/2014 Location; On a swing mooring at Hopetoun Western Australia

We are now two months into our sailing around Australia adventure. As I reflect on the last 2 months, 2 words keep coming into my mind. Adventure and Anxiety.

According to the oxford dictionary, the word adventure means “to engage in daring or risky activity”. The result of carrying out daring or risky activity is anxiety that the dictionary says is “a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome”.

For the past 2 months, or really for the past twelve months as we prepared for this journey, we have had big doses of adventure and anxiety.

Leaving Quindalup, to sail around Cape Naturaliste and then Cape Leeuwin, knowing that we would have no landfall until Albany 2 days later was definitely “carrying out a daring or risky activity”. Our friends Neil and Jan on their boat Annie had tried this passage just a few days prior to us and were turned back by huge seas, strong winds and damage to their boat. Their experience in itself served to dramatically heighten the worry, nervousness, un-ease and had an uncertain outcome for us.

For Leanne and myself, every day so far has been a good mixture of each. I thought that the passages (when we travel from one place to the next) would be the most anxious times and when we were anchored the adventure would be in exploring the places we have stopped at, such as Hopetoun.

In fact it has been nearly the reverse. The passages have been an adventure, as we try to get the best performance out of the boat within the given conditions. Of course three boats going in a line to the same destination basically constitutes a race. On several of our passages that has been quite exciting as we converge on the anchorage from different directions depending on our navigation techniques and different boat performance characterisitics.

Conversely, our time on anchor in strange bays, surrounded by reef, very close to the beach while sitting out 30 to 40 knot wind gusts has been times where anxiety has kicked in for me.

At Bremer Bay one of 2 anchor bridle shackles that attach the boat to the anchor chain (so pretty important) came off and left us swinging on one side. Then sea small swivel shackle came off the dinghy lift cable. When that one came undone it resulted in our dinghy floating away. Luckily, the “b’s” were on alert and carried out an impeccable dinghy rescue routine. Thank goodness they had practiced that at Two Peoples Bay when we didn’t really need it.

Today we are battened down in the small anchorage at Hopetoun, the wind is blowing across our bows at nearly 30 knots. The gusts sound like a freight train passing by the window and it is blowing in a direct line towards a rocky shore. This has been a normal pattern for the few days here in Hopetoun.  At least we get to adventure in the morning and then anxiously wait out the wind in the afternoon and evenings.

On a more positive note is that we have become very good students of the weather and are yet to suffer any surprises in that department. This means we know what to expect and can prepare accordingly. So this morning we got up bright and early, walked around to the next bay and had a swim. We still had time to walk back, sit on the beach watching the locals for a while and then share morning tea with Brian and Eva on Zofia.

Now we are back on our boat, battened down and will be doing “indoor sports” as the wind turns from morning zephyr into afternoon raging beast.  

There is a wind direction change forecast for tomorrow, so we will use that to carry us to Esperance.

I am now anxious about the next anchorage that we have heard many a horror story about, but I am really looking forward to the adventure of the 20 hour sail we need to do to get there.

In the mean time I ‘m reminding myself that without the anxiety it wouldn’t be an adventure and that the adventure is producing anxiety.

Three boats going to the same destination... that's a race!

 

On anchor at Hopetoun. What could go wrong?

Sailing Around Australia; A Real Gem

11/1/2014 A real Gem

The three amigos’ around Australia sailing adventure has brought us into Hopetoun Western Australia. This is a real gem of in the gravel of small towns of Australia.

Brian (B2) and Eva on board Zofia seem to fill the role of advanced landing party as they can attract the locals in a matter of minutes (see Bremer Bay). This time they managed to find a real gem of a bloke called Keith (what, no Brian’s available?) while still in transit into the anchorage.

Keith is the deputy Shire President, president of the VMR, captain of the bush fire brigade and all round general good guy. He offered us rainwater and a trip out to the Fitzgerald National Park again, before we had even anchored.

With conditions forecast to be low swell, light winds and warm weather we couldn’t really have picked a better time to stay a few days in Hopetoun. We are anchored a few hundred metres west of a rock groyne and jetty, from which the locals and holiday makers have been taking pictures of the three boats from dawn till dusk.

When we took our dinghy to the beach, we were approached by one “senior aged” lady who thanked us for visiting and hoped we didn’t mind that she had taken some lovely pictures of our boats. She said that she got one really good one of our boats with the sun setting behind them. She thought she may call that one “sunset’ and send to her son who was a keen sailor.

We also met an ex Fusion 40 owner on the beach who was lamenting the sale of his boat a year or so ago. Fusion 40 is the brand of our boat Easy Tiger. There a few of these boats around, but if someone can pick the brand and style from the beach then they get my attention as they must know what they are talking about. This guy we nicknamed FIGJAM though as we didn’t get a word in edgeways. He was a glass fully empty sort of person, so we opted out as quickly as we could.

Our first impression of Hopetoun was, well, impressive. A clean tidy main street, with beautifully restored train station across the park from a nicely presented old world country pub greeted us as we approached from the beach.

Further along was a little country bakery, where B2 had already positioned himself and was interviewing the locals. Eva had already found some very cute little handcrafted handbags for her grandies.

We walked further along the main street past the Community Resource Centre that was advertising Zumba groups for this evening. We then went around the quaint cricket ground surrounded by the white picket fence. This looks like it would not be out of place in England.

Next morning Eva had organized our tour of the National Park with Keith. Maree, Eva, Leanne and I went, with Brian (B1) Lowe wanting to stay on his boat. In fact B1 now has the nickname of Barnacle, because try as we might we can’t get him off the boat. B2, I think was planning a second or third assault on the bakery while Eva was otherwise occupied. I know he must of achieved this as today they are out of sausage rolls.

Our guided tour provided by Keith was marvelous. He was able to give us a heap of information as he had done all types of jobs on site during the construction of the park including mulching and driving trucks loaded with gravel up the very steep hill.

The Fitzgerald National Park had a heap of state government funds put into it as a way of offsetting the devastation brought to the shire by the shutting down of the local BHP Nickel mine.

This work involved putting in sealed two lane roads, carparks and interpretive displays at each point of interest. There are also camp grounds with eco toilets, bbq’s and benches, all absolutely brand new and modern in design.

The scenery and views of places like West Mount Barren are breathtaking and the beaches are absolutely pristine and deserted.

Keith then concluded the tour with a visit to a left over from the BHP days. Then it was a Function Centre for the 1800 or so employees of the mine. Today though it is a brand new tavern and social centre that would easily match anything on offer in the cities.

All the locals tell us here that we have been very lucky to have found Hopetoun in this weather window. Apparently in can be a very inhospitable anchorage, with swell and wind waves from different directions. With the forecast for South Westerlies we will leave for a 20 hour run to Esperance on Monday.

One thing is for sure though all of us, even Barnacle, are glad we discovered this gem, Hopetoun.

Steve on the beach at Hopetoun.

A recent addition to curb parking problems at the new tavern in Hopetoun. Park on the roof!

The road up to West Mount Barren is very Scenic.

At points of interest are interpretive displays.

Fro the lookout you get the contrast of the grey Culham estuary as well as the blue blue Southern Ocean.