Sailing a damaged boat across Australia [105]

[00:00:00]We've hit something um and it's snapped our rudder.

[00:00:04]>> Last night as we were coming to towards Darwin turning around the top of Australia in the middle right in the middle of the channel we uh hit something probably a log and we heard this horrendous noise. I looked at Tom who was at the wheel and his face was petrified. My face was petrified. We are down to one engine. The sail drive on our port side is heavily damaged. Uh, we got basically all the oil drained out and filled up with salt water. I'm Tom and right now I'm helping my friend Fabio sail his 52 ft catamaran from Australia up into Asia. It's a journey of more than 4,000 nautical miles through the Great Barrier Reef and beyond. But for Fabio, this trip means a lot more than simply moving a boat from one country to another. His wife Kristen, who was meant to be making this journey alongside him, passed away last year. So, it's a huge step and a massive challenge for Fabio to get back on the boat and keep moving forward. So, I've joined Fabio along with my brother Johnny and my nephew Quinn to help get the boat north and hopefully have a few adventures along the way. Over the past few weeks, we've been making our way through the Great Barrier Reef, learning the boat, catching plenty of fish, and slowly making our way north. But sailing has a habit of reminding you that things change very quickly. Last episode, in the middle of the night, we hit something floating in the water. I would say a huge tree. The impact was huge.

[00:01:22]Hard enough that we all felt it and stood to attention. And when you hit something like that, there's really only one question that really matters. How bad is the damage?

[00:01:43]Okay. Um must be about 8:00 p.m. 7 maybe 7 or 8.

[00:01:48]Uh pitch black. We're in 60 ft of water in the middle of the channel and um a big a big thump, a couple of thumps. Um we've hit something um and it's snapped our rudder on our port side.

[00:02:05]Um so we're just sort of assessing it at the moment. The other side, our starboard side, uh we still have that rudder. So we do have some steering. Um but right now we just need to assess.

[00:02:16]The rudder is gone. like it's it's still hanging on to the boat, but it's uh unusable.

[00:02:35]Uh so we've been motoring all night uh on one rudder just cuz there's really minimal anchorage options around here.

[00:02:43]There was one that we passed, but it was in the middle of the night. Uh, and we were still doing well, so we just continued on, and we're going to get to Thursday Island in a few hours. Uh, so we have just entered the Tory Strait, which is the body of water that goes between the northern tip of Queensland and Papa Newu Guinea. Just entering that now and about to get into some sort of shallower areas to uh follow the channel into Thursday Island. The original plan was to continue past Thursday Island. We had no real reason to stop. Uh but now we are going to stop there and assess. I was there with Expedition Drenched a few years ago. Uh and from memory, the the visibility isn't that good cuz we need to get in the water and and really evaluate the damage. But there are crocodiles around.

[00:03:34]Um, so yeah, not quite sure what our approach is going to be with that. We'll just see when we get there and see what the visibility is like and go from there. Last night, as we were coming to towards Darwin, turn around the top of Australia in the middle right in the middle of the channel, we uh hit something, probably a log, and we heard this horrendous noise while Johnny and I were making mashed potatoes.

[00:04:02]And uh so I came out and I look at uh I look at Tom who was at the wheel and his face was petrified as my face was petrified for a second. I'm sure he was he thought he had hit ground or something but it's impossible cuz we're in the middle of the channel. We furled this creature which was still putting us forward and then we had one engine going to charge the batteries. Unfortunately, the alarm for the cell drive went off with water in the cell drive which signal that we had hit the cell drive pretty hard. We looked at the rudder through the rudder hatch and uh the rudder was totally bent backwards, gone.

[00:04:38]So we uh we made the decision to pull to come into Thursday island. We removed the rudder from the rudder whale. We continue going with one rudder overnight motortored this morning. Sailed just a little bit. The rudder on on a Sewin 1600 is a transom hung rudder mean meaning it's all the way at the end of the boat and it's a very long rudder.

[00:05:01]It's about 5.2 feet which helps tracking a little bit because it's it's a little like another dagger board basically. The advantage of this is that it's removable. So you can take it out and go into shallow water which I never knew until I came here to Australia how important is it it is in this areas with huge tides. you can beach the boat theoretically and you can and you can do some you know do uh clean the boat while you're standing in the sand.

[00:05:29]Uh the disadvantage of this because it's it's a hung rudder. If it was straight down, it would be very hard to steer because the water would as soon as they're turning would prevent you from from turning the boat. For that reason, they they caned it forward a little bit.

[00:05:47]So the lower part of the rudder gets hit by the water and helps you turn.

[00:05:52]Different from a regular rudder that you have on a say on a lagoon or a font page where there's a post inside. So the the front part of the rudder helps you turn when you turn the boat. So it's much easier to turn this. These rudders are pretty stiff, you know, under pressure.

[00:06:10]You got to put some some push on it. Um, the disadvantage of having this design is that being caned forward when you hit something, if you hit if you get a rope, it it goes all the way up to the uh goes the way up to the cassette and it gets stuck in there. So, you have to actually take the the rod around to remove the rope and uh and it's so long that if you hit uh like what we hit probably a log, it's likely to kind of like smash the uh the R backwards. The advantage if that happens, you don't sink.

[00:06:44]Uh you lose a router. If if this happens on a on a on a router that is hung on a post, potentially like you seen on some of those uh Orca's videos, they can rip the uh the post out and you have a hole in the bottom of the boat. So everything in the boat has got a pros and cons. You know, I particularly like this system just because I can replace it if I have to and it turns the boat into like a a dime.

[00:07:13]>> Yeah. So, obviously it obviously the advantage is that it doesn't rip a hole in your boat and it's replaceable. Yeah.

[00:07:21]>> It's a it ends up being a replaceable part that you can replace on the water.

[00:07:25]So, that's what we did. With a little bit of modification to the cassette, which is the removable mount that the rudder slides into, which pivots on a large bolt, we had everything swapped over in just a couple of hours. And as Fabio said, it's actually a pretty clever design. On one hand, it makes replacing a damaged rudder relatively straightforward. But on the other, it intentionally creates a sacrificial weak point in the system. And while nobody likes breaking parts, that weak point might be the very thing that saves a boat from much more serious damage. If you hit something hard with a traditional rudder setup, all of that force gets transferred directly into the hull. With this design, the cassette takes that hit instead. So, it's one of those engineering trade-offs. Every design has its pros and cons. Either way, we were pretty happy we had a spare on board. We bolted on the spare cassette, slid the spare rudder into place, and just like that, we were back in business.

[00:08:18]>> Well done.

[00:08:18]>> Well done there, team.

[00:08:21]And today we uh went through the step necessary to replace it. Thankfully I have spare cassettes and spare rider on board and uh Johnny did a great job fixing it. So now we're back back in action. Uh the dagger board is stuck. We probably hit it pretty hard too. I'm think I'm going to get in the water despite the uh crocodiles and the and the sharks and the murky water uh and check it out real quick. I want to make sure that the the sail drive is still hanging solid. We're not going to lose it while sailing there. So, >> because we're down to one engine, even though we fixed the rudder with >> Yeah. Yeah. We're down to one engine. Uh and and if this sail drive fell off, then we have a hole in the bottom of the boat, which is pretty big. So, yeah.

[00:09:08]Long and short of it.

[00:09:11]I can film this.

[00:09:19]How you going guys? Uh now some of you may know I'm hosting some charters this year in September in French Polynesia.

[00:09:26]Now unfortunately there was one group that booked the whole boat and they could no longer make it. So now I have a full week available that is September 11th till September 18th. This one I'm doing with my good childhood friend Magenta and she is a whale expert and that is a good thing because it is whale season. So, we're going to have private boats come to our boat and pick you up and take you out swimming with the humpac whales. It is going to be epic, trust me.

[00:09:59]So, get on board. September 11th till the 18th. If you're interested, send me an email at [email protected].

[00:10:08]Uh, and I can get all the details to you. It's going to be a good one.

[00:10:37]Good morning. Good morning.

[00:10:40]All right, the sun has just come up.

[00:10:43]And uh we are looking to head out to head out this morning. Keep heading west actually from now on. No, no more north. Uh heading west and we got a westerly. So again the wind is going to be behind us and uh from here it's probably going to be about 5 days to get to Darwin.

[00:11:04]Um we are down to one engine.

[00:11:07]The sail drive on our port side is heavily damaged. Uh we got basically all the oil drained out and filled up with salt water. Um so we need to haul out and um and repair that. Uh which is a job for Darwin.

[00:11:25]So um yeah, looks like we got pretty good winter sail anyway. Um but when we get there, we're only going to be able to come in on one engine.

[00:11:36]That's good thing about catamarans is you got the backup.

[00:11:40]The only issue is when you're trying to get in and out of marinas and things.

[00:11:44]Um, once you're moving, it's fine. You can steer, but always when you come when you when you from a from a stop start and you you put it into gear, um, you will always sort of turn to to the opposite side that the engine is on. Uh, so when you're in sort of close quarters, uh, marinas, uh, it can be it can be tricky with one engine.

[00:12:10]because that engine is not centered in a catamaran. It's on one side, so it just wants to twist you around, you know.

[00:12:17]But anyway, we're just waiting for people to get up and then uh and then get out of here.

[00:12:25]After leaving Thursday Island, we started heading west along the northern coastline of Australia. The rudder was repaired, but the collision had left us with some serious damage to one of our sail drives. So, for now, we were down to a single engine. Not ideal, but manageable. From here, it's about 700 nautical miles to Darwin, where we can haul out and get a proper look at the damage. And that's really our only option. Between here and Darwin, there aren't any places capable of hauling out a boat this size. So, for now, we just had to keep going and hope nothing gets worse. The good news was the weather.

[00:12:58]After weeks of battling stronger winds up the east coast, the forecast was finally looking like something sailors can actually enjoy.

[00:13:16]And then just when we thought we'd seen enough excitement for a while, we passed by something pretty incredible. A feeding frenzy. There were sharks everywhere, far more than the camera could ever pick up. They looked like bull sharks mixed in with giant travali hammering into bait balls right on the surface. It was pretty incredible to watch. and also a pretty good reminder of why none of us had been spending much time in the water up here. Between the crocodiles, the sharks, and the murky visibility, swimming hasn't exactly been high on the priority list. But watching it all unfold from the boat was pretty incredible.

[00:14:02]Yeah.

[00:14:29]We're just going over our uh man overboard procedures again. Just a little reminder of how to do it. We're just leaving the islands now and starting our uh passage across the Gulf of Carparia.

[00:14:44]Uh it's going to be probably two days of um of no land uh till we get to a group of islands on the other side. But the weather is looking a hell of a lot better than what we've had over the last few weeks. Uh it's looking like kind of 10 to 15 knots uh from behind. So it's like perfect spin weather. Uh so it should be quite comfortable and um and just really nice sailing.

[00:15:12]Woo!

[00:15:27]Woo!

[00:15:36]Heat. Heat.

[00:16:02]Heat. Heat.

[00:16:09]Heat.

[00:16:21]Heat.

[00:16:44]It's been a uh pretty cruisy day. We've had the sper flying all day. We started out with the main and the screecher only for about 30 minutes and then we put that away uh cuz it's just perfect wind for the uh spiner.

[00:16:59]We've sort of had about 10 knots apparent wind and we've been moving somewhere anywhere between sort of 6 and 8 knots. Yeah, I think actually I think in total from from the islands was about 700 nautical miles to get to Darwin.

[00:17:16]So I'm guessing about 5 days, but there's going to be at least 2 days of no land. Then we'll see a few islands and then uh and then back to no land again, I think. But um this just looks like the next 5 days just looks like really cruisy conditions. Uh which is great for a change. We've had sort of 20 to 30 knots over the last few weeks since we started the trip in Brisbane.

[00:17:43]So um yeah, great to have some calmer, more pleasant sailing conditions.

[00:17:49]Maybe we'll even keep the spiner up all night because the spiner is there's a bit of a process to putting it up and putting it away. Um, normally we just like to put it away before everyone goes to bed, uh, while we've still got sunlight. But I don't know. I think tonight um we're going to leave it out.

[00:18:19]As the sun went down, there was definitely a sense of relief on board.

[00:18:22]The boat wasn't perfect. We knew that we were carrying damage down an engine and still had a long way to go before we could get the boat out of the water and properly assess everything. But we were moving not quickly, not carelessly, just steadily, taking it one day at a time, one mile at a time, and slowly working our way towards Darwin.

[00:19:36]I know All right. So, typically about 20 minutes after the sun went down, the wind picked up to 23 knots and we had to bring in the sper. Um, we were really hoping for a nice nice night of 15 knots like the forecast predicted. Um, not a cloud in the sky, stars are out. So, uh, we were really comfortable, but typically about 20 minutes later, 23 knots. Um, which is fine. And you know, we can bring the sper down in the dark, but if we hadn't have known that was coming, we would have done it 20 minutes earlier.

[00:20:39]But that's just the way it goes. We ripped our rudder off and we've also heavily heavily damaged our sail drive on our port side. So, it's unusable. We cannot use that engine. Um, and it's got a lot of movement. It's actually clunking around. Um, we're safe from ripping a hole in our boat. Um, but there's a lot of movement under the water and you can actually hear it sort of the the sail drive sort of moving backwards and forwards. Uh, Fabio got in the water at Thursday Island and we tied a line around it. Um, just so we don't lose it. So, yeah, that was another reason why we we needed to take it down because we can't really go too fast.

[00:21:21]When the wind picked up to 22 23 knots, um, obviously it was a lot of clunking.

[00:21:28]um with that movement. So, we don't want to be going, you know, we were going nine knots and we don't want to be doing that. We want to be sitting around six or seven comfortably. Uh even even less even. Um and that noise just goes away when we're going about that speed. So, that's ideal. Anyway, me and Quinn have got the midnight till uh 3:00 a.m.

[00:21:48]shift, so it's bedtime.

[00:22:00]All right, today is another day and uh we're halfway across the Gulf. We tied up the sail drive yesterday, strapped it to the boat uh cuz it was just thumping around a lot last night and um we're just slowed right down. Now we're just flying with a jib just to keep us going about 5 knots. uh every time we speed up over sort of six or seven uh suddenly that thumping you know the whole sail drive is loose and it's moving around under there. So we've we've wrapped a line around it and tied it up uh just to so it can just move minimally now. We just don't want that to move at all. But that's pretty hard to do.

[00:22:42]So basically just babying it. Um that's that's the plan there. That's the situation. Uh but yeah, now we just had a whole bunch of flags in the water around us. Um and there's some kind of fishing boat. It doesn't look Australian. I'm not sure if we're in Australian waters still or not. I don't actually know to be honest with you. And we don't have any Wi-Fi out here to check. Uh but it definitely looked like a Papa Newu Guinea fishing boat or Indonesian fishing boat. Um and it looks like a whole bunch of nets in the water.

[00:23:12]So we've had to just do a bit of a loop around that.

[00:23:17]So yeah, it's all action today. It's all action. Trying to each time we sort of change direction, a new one pops up. So they just seem to be everywhere. So we're just picking a line going through at the widest point between them.

[00:23:34]So yeah, we've been waiting for the swell to die down today, hoping that it would so we could get in uh and check it out properly, and it just hasn't. Uh we're about to lose light now. So uh we have decided to put a few people couple of people in the water and have a look under there and see what the see what the damage is. See when it does move, when it does clunk um to see what is act what it's actually doing and is it causing any more damage uh or is it just you know it's just noise that we don't have to worry about.

[00:24:10]So that's uh couple of volunteers are going to go in soon.

[00:24:15]>> It's much easier from this side.

[00:24:17]>> Okay, he's got it, >> Johnny. Yeah, it's much easier from this side. The problem is on this side.

[00:24:29]>> But it's already tied on on this side, though.

[00:24:31]>> Yeah. Let's get Let's get another one.

[00:24:34]>> I can dive down and pass it to you.

[00:24:36]>> Okay.

[00:24:44]Um, so we've just jumped in to attempt to tie tie the s drive from the base and support it in every direction we can so that we can travel a little bit faster without the horrible noise and the potential of further damage. So yeah, so we um, Fabio, me and Fabio jumped in either side of the hull and it was pretty washy. You can see the there's a good meter maybe two swell coming and obviously the sugar scoops clear the water at times. So that was pretty pretty gnarly but um so we managed to tie three different ropes and different directions and strap it all all around. So um and we're making good good time now. So um good speed and no noise. So a success. Um it was pretty it was bit airy. It's pretty green in there. lots of um lots of sludge and slime, but um couldn't see very far. And then, you know, had to dive down and hold halfway down the rudder. Um I put an extra weight on to try and stop myself from knocking my head on on the hull, which seemed to work pretty good.

[00:25:50]Fabio's ended up with a couple of good scuffs and uh I got away with nothing.

[00:25:54]So, happy with that. Um but yeah, so mission successful.

[00:26:00]So, thanks to Johnny and Fabio.

[00:26:03]cut us back a whole day I'm pretty sure to get to Darwin. So pretty stoked for with them boys.

[00:26:16]>> Copy Australian Maritime. This is Wonder.

[00:26:31]uh registration number.

[00:26:33]>> As we made our way west, another regular part of life up here is checking in with the Australian Border Force. A couple of times a day, we'd hear them on the radio asking the same questions. What's the boat's name? Where is it registered? The last port? What's your next port? And how many people are on board? And every time, we'd give the same answers. And I'm sure there's good reason for it.

[00:26:52]This part of Australia isn't that far from Indonesia and Papa Newu Guinea. And there's a lot of coastline to keep an eye on. You'd normally hear the aircraft overhead. watch it pass by. Then a few seconds later, the radio will crackle with life with the border force calling out your boat name. You'd basically answer all their questions. Then they would wish you fair winds and following seas. Then a few hours later, it'll happen again. Land ho over there.

[00:27:18]Land ho. Land ho. That wasn't I'm filming now. Land ho.

[00:27:41]All right. All right. So, we've just anchored up here at Two Island Bay. And actually, it's um I've just realized when we come in here that this is the exact same place that we anchored when I was on Exploration Drenched. Once again, there's a beach just around that point over there that uh that we went to and played volleyball and did a bit of a beach cleanup. It's all coming back to me now, those memories.

[00:28:09]But we're the only boat here. Um and we're going to spend the night here and carry on tomorrow.

[00:28:17]So, thanks for watching and if you're enjoying this journey, then don't forget to like, subscribe, and share it with someone that might connect with it, too.

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