By MARK PESCOTT, crew member onboard entrant POWER BREWING!
My most vivid memory of the leg to Adelaide was running before a 40-knot wind, surfing down mammoth waves with just the staysail up on a crystal clear night under a brilliant full moon. Stunning.— Mark Pescott, Power Brewing
At 8 minutes past 8am on the 8th of August, 1988, 26 crew members on 7 multihulls and 6 monohulls started the Bicentennial Goodman Fielder Wattie 2 Sail Australia, Around Australia Yacht Race in Sydney Harbour. The multihull fleet consisted of 5 boats in the under 40 ft class and 2 in the 50–60 ft class.
The 35’ Lex Nicol designed trimaran, Escapade, skippered by Michael Holt with Bob Dunn as crew.
The 36’ Lock Crowther designed and Shawn Arber built trimaran, St. Terese, skippered by John Cadwallader with Julian Boyd as crew.
The 38’ Shaun Arber designed catamaran, Spirit of Cairns, built by skipper Stafford Steer and Mark Pescott with John Bohle as crew.
The 40’ Lock Crowther designed catamaran, John West, skippered by Gavin Le Sueur with Catherine Reed as crew.
The 40’ Lock Crowther designed trimaran, Verbatim, built by co-skippers Ian Johnson and Cathy Hawkins.
The 50’ to 60’ class consisted of the Lock Crowther designed 60’ trimaran, Power Brewing (formerly Yumi Maru), skippered by builder Phillip Smith and crewed by Mark Pescott. The sole Kiwi entry was the 60’ David Alan Williams designed state-of-the-art trimaran, Steinlager I, skippered by Peter Blake with Mike Quilter as crew.
Modelled on the 2-handed Round Britain and Ireland Yacht Race, the 2-handed Around Australia race had fixed time stopovers of up to 5 days in Mooloolaba, Cairns, Darwin, Fremantle, Adelaide, Hobart, Western Port Bay (Melbourne) and finishing in Sydney.
A blustery 30-knot south-westerly greeted the fleet for the early morning start on Sydney Harbour. By late afternoon the fleet were sailing in a full 50-knot southerly gale. Escapade became the first casualty, capsizing just before dusk. The drama continued as the police boat sent out to rescue them sank, with a helicopter rescuing first the police boat crew, then a very cold and tired Michael and Bob at dawn. Tragically, Geoff Courtis was lost overboard off the monohull Boundary Rider later in the night.
The race restarted at Mooloolaba with an easy run up the coast to Cairns, home port for both Spirit of Cairns and Power Brewing. From Cairns the run continued up the Queensland coast and across the gulf to Darwin. The longest leg from Darwin to Fremantle of 2000 miles also produced the biggest variation in conditions from light winds and very hot conditions across the top to colder southerly busters down the west coast of Australia.
From Freo on until after Melbourne all yachts encountered consistent severe gales. On Power Brewing we were due to leave at 0400 after our 5-day stopover, but with a full gale blowing, with the wind instruments maxed out at 68 knots, we weren’t going anywhere. Having left 3 days earlier, Verbatim encountered the worst of the 70-knot-plus storm, running under bare poles with warps streaming.
My most vivid memory of the leg to Adelaide was running before a 40-knot wind, surfing down mammoth waves with just the staysail up on a crystal clear night under a brilliant full moon. Stunning.
Again the 5-day stopover in Adelaide was enjoyed by all crews. Stafford and John arrived on Spirit of Cairns with a damaged prodder, stanchions, broken daggerboard and John reporting having to climb up the cockpit floor to release the mainsheet in order to prevent a capsize. “All I could think of was how cold the water would be if we went over,” said John.
Before leaving Adelaide we obtained a forecast that about 36 hours after leaving we would have 55-knot winds with 6 metre waves on a 6 metre swell. And true to the prediction that is about what we had, running under bare poles, watching waves break all around us.
I had just come off watch and with Phil on the helm, Power Brewing broached and slid down the wave sideways, landing at the bottom with enough force to jolt the liferaft out of its chocks on the aft deck and over the side. The boat itself was undamaged, but at this stage Phil decided that for no other reason other than he had had enough, that we would not continue in the race and set a course straight for Western Port Bay rather than continuing to Hobart. His boat, his decision, end of the matter.
At the same time Spirit of Cairns were encountering the same gale and were dismasted just before dusk off Robe just south of Adelaide. Only the deployment of their sea anchor kept them off the rocks while the storm abated overnight, and they were safely towed into port in the morning. Two weeks later they had a new mast and completed the race.
A few days later St. Terese capsized off the Tasmanian coast, with John and Julian safely rescued the following day. Some years later St. Terese was spotted by the Australian Navy still floating upside down.
The gales continued. John West rounded Maatsuyker Island at the bottom of Tasmania in 60 knots, with the lighthouse there later reporting 80 knots. Steinlager I sailed much of the way from Hobart to Western Port Bay with only their wing mast and took 3 attempts to clear Flinders Island. The 50’ monohull, Goodman Zulu Chief, after crossing Bass Strait then ran onto the rocks at the entrance to Western Port Bay.
It took me 2 weeks to convince Phil to at least continue on to Sydney as a non-finisher. We left when the weather was favourable in company with Gavin and Catherine on John West, arriving in Sydney a few days later.
Steinlager I had won quite comfortably, the Kiwis came, kicked arse and left. Second boat home sailed by the gallant Cathy Hawkins and Ian Johnson was Verbatim, followed by John West, with Spirit of Cairns the last boat to finish.
On the dock in Sydney the next day was the last time I talked to the great Lock Crowther, who had designed 4 of the 7 multihulls in the race. “Would you do it again?” Lock asked me. “Yeah, sure, but I’d do it properly next time,” I replied. A simple nod of the head was Lock’s response.