Albany to Port Lincoln Sail

Esperance-Port Lincoln Sail

Summary: The crossing from Esperance to Port Lincoln, South Australia covered approximately 700 nautical miles and took ten days. The first day was an engine run in weak winds to Lucky Bay, 20 miles to the East, for a overnight stay. The first two days after Lucky Bay were upwind beats into NE winds which at times exceeded 40 knots. Later we were becalmed for 27 hours then we were graced by N and NE winds that gave us a 146 mile sail on our last day.


We departed the pen at the Esperance Bay Yacht Club at 0830 on 20 May. This was the third day of predicted light winds that had forced a postponement of our planned departure date. We motored all of the way to Lucky Bay, 20 nm to the East, passing through the tight channel between Ram Island and Cape LeGrand. We dropped anchor in Lucky Bay in 6m of water 200 meters off the beach at 1.30PM. For the first time I deployed the 50 lb Swarbrick anchor in real conditions, complete with trip line, and the system is practical. The next morning Sue, our new sailing friend from EBYC picked up Brenda at 7AM to take her back to Esperance for her bus ride back to Perth. Spending a night at anchor in Lucky Bay was the fulfillment of a long-standing wish.

Arnold and I weighed anchor at 9AM and sailed all night with a partial jib only with 35-40 kn NE winds and high seas. We had decided against trying to make it to Middle Island because the likelihood was that this would require night sailing in the archipelago. We headed SE trying to clear the archipelago by nightfall. It was on this day that a serious crisis developed regarding the amount of water entering the bilge. It was obvious that the drain hose to the stern had not been the problem and Arnold was concerned about the sheer volume of water entering the boat. He was correct. I was being a victim of both familiarity with the overflowing bilge and denial. We discussed going back – but to where? Esperance had not repair facilities, Albany would be a hard beat, and then what? Also, it would mean a year's postponement of our circumnavigation. By then we had eliminated water coming in from the stern so I told Arnold that I would look in the front. This was not easy given the mountain of bedding clothing, sails, etc to be removed, but times were desperate. I looked in an area where I had plugged a hole between the chain locker and the bilge months earlier and saw that water was seeping though it. I opened the inspection hatch between the V-berth area and the chain locker and I was amazed to see that the two holes designed to drain the anchor well were letting water in as well as out. Every time the bow went down there would be a rush of water. The the bow would rise and the water would drain. This explained how water could get into the boat but the partially blocked hole into the bilge area really did not explain the volume of water. We did this work while hove to. The next day under full sail I had a beer then told Arnold that I was going forward to look for a “smoking gun”. I opened the lid to the port sail locker to look at the blocked hole and there it was: the rhythm of the bow pitching up and down was accompanied by a squirt of water the diameter of a pencil with enough force to travel 300 mm through the air into the sail locker then into the bilge. There was a second hole between the anchor well and the inside of the boat and I had missed it. At this point one hole has been plugged up with a 20g screw, and the other hole with a conical piece of wood designed to plug holes, because the diameter of the hole was too big for any screws that I had on hand. I filed the end to give a sharper point then drove it in with a hammer. The area is now bone dry. Now instead of using the Whale Gusher every 20 minutes we use it ever 2 or 3 hours, averaging 10 strokes of water per hour. ... Yes, this means that there is still water coming into the boat, but we are out of peril and will have time to solve the problem. ... This problem is related to the rebuilding of the chain locker area that I did over a year ago. A previous owner had discontinued the use of the main anchor area, plugged up the drain holes to the outside, and bored the two holes drain any water from the anchor chain into the bilge. It appears that he was trying to eliminate that constant movement of water in and out of the anchor well.

On the night of the 22nd we were tired of close to two days of punching against the huge seas of a strong (25 kn)NE wind. We decided to deploy our 18-ft Para Anchor to hold our ground while we got a few hours of rest. We did this successfully and lost less than 1 kn against a 21 kn wind. The next morning we recovered the system with little trouble, though we have found that 100 m of wet thick nylon rope weighs a ton and must be dried out eventually. The Para Anchor performs as advertised and I have total confidence in its ability to save our bacon in a survival storm. However Arnold and I have concluded that the system has too many time and effort overheads to justify causal use as suggested by the provider.

On 24 May we noticed a parted seam on the head sail. The wind died down that night and we decided to sacrifice 2 NM progress by heaving to and getting some much-needed rest. We had the advantage that the wind was from the SW meaning that we were unlikely to lose any ground. We hove to at 8.30 PM and resumed sailing at 12.30 AM. In these four hours we had drifted 3.5 NM to the south.

At this point we were aware of several problems: (1) the tear in the jib mentioned above (2) the Autohelm self steering would not go into “Auto” (i.e. start steering) (3) the Trimble GPS repeater was contaminated internally with water (4) the toilet keeps overflowing (with clean sea water!) and we will have to check how well the less-than-a-year-old stainless steel ball cock is sealing (5) the wind charger has quit working. Arnold did some trouble shooting and concluded that the wind charger's regulator was working OK but that the wind charger was not delivering any power. We looked at the wind charger and discovered that the two screws holding the unit to its mounting were missing and the entire unit had spun around twisting the cabling and eventually severing the connection. We'll have to look at this when we are safely in a pen. Some minor things are a parted reefing line, which means that I will replace both of them probably with Spectra lines. Also, the roller furler line has developed frays in its cover, even though it is less than 1 year old. Oh yes, I almost forgot. The deck light quit working, even though it is less than a year old.

But most things are working well. The boat sails well and is living up to its reputation of being a good sea boat. Arnold and I are very pleased with the wet weather gear. The galley works fine and we can cook good meals when we find the time and energy.

We've been running the engine for about 1 hr per day because the overcast and broken wind generator have prevented charging from the sun or wind.

This is being written at 1PM on 26 May. We are approximately 290 NM from Port Lincoln. The parted seam of the headsail has become a full tear, though the damage is being contained. The boat is steering herself down the rhumb line against a 12 Kn SE wind and the sun is shining. Things don't look so bad.

This is 4.10 PM CST Tuesday 27 May. Today we set all clocks to Central Standard Time. We had a splendid sail last night making over 5 knots against a 15 kn SE breeze. At 3 AM that died and we brought down all sails and lay ahull. We woke up at 8.30 AM still drifting in light airs, so we decided to make the best of it, spending all of the morning tidying up the boat, having our first baths in days and doing minor repairs. For me it was the first wash or shave in 4 days. As before I went for a swim and then washed with salt water soap. It is a strange experience to find yourself swimming freely more than 150 miles from the coast and with more than 1500 meters between you and the bottom. We then had a good brunch of toast, eggs and sausage. Then we exchanged SMS messages and Arnold telephoned his wife in Wisconsin with the satellite telephone. I managed to get two failing head torches working again and figured out that the likely cause of the ingress of water through the toilet is that the rubber joker valve of the toilet got damage when that drain plug passed through it a few days ago. The joker valve is the last valve of the system and acts as a one-way valve. I will put a replacement kit though it as soon as possible. We are now motoring for about an hour to charge up the batteries hoping that the meager 5-knot breeze that we have detected will be enough to keep the boat moving without too much flogging. We are approximately 220 nm from Port Lincoln.

28 May Arnold went on deck at 0600 and discovered that we had a Northerly wind of 6-8 kn after more than 24 hours of being becalmed. At 7.15 AM we were sailing on port reach with an 10-15 kn northerly wind, averaging more than 6 kn. From noon until midnight we covered 73 miles, yielding an average of 6.2 kn.

29 May By midnight the wind was veering to the NE and by 6 AM we were beating close hauled against a 23-kn wind with full main, heavily furled jib, doing 6.6 kn. We also did more investigations and discovered that water is still spurting into the bilge from the front section of the boat. This will be the focus of the next segment of our leak investigtions. At 10 AM we made landfall and our noon-to-noon distance sailed was 146 nm, yielding an average of 6.1 nm over 24 hours, much of it beating to windward. With a failing adverse wind we motored to Proper Bay at Port Lincoln and dropped anchor in 8.3 m of water at about 10 PM. The motoring up to Surfleet point and down into Proper Bay was very difficult because there was no moon and the approach was not well marked. We put our entire trust in the chart plotter, with me calling out subtle heading changes and Arnold at the helm. The chart plotter proved to be unbelievably accurate, and the radar image imposed over the chart proved very consistent and provided good corroboration.

30 May We spent the morning cleaning the boat, drying the wet bedding and clothing, and doing odd maintenance jobs. Acting on Arnold's enthusiastic urging I had another go at removing the bungs from the tops of the 140 liter water tanks and succeeded using a proper ring spanner. The starboard tank, which services the galley, is almost dry. The Starboard tank, which services the wash basin in the head, is about ¾ full. This is after 10 days, 9 of which was just Arnold and myself. Now that we can plumb the tanks we will organize a calibrated stick. (Note that the tanks are selectable when we use pressure water.) We had established telephone contact with Reg the previous night and today he arranged a pen for us at the local marina. We weighed anchor at 4PM and when we arrived at the marina at 5PM Reg was there to guide us to the pen and help us tied up. That night we shouted Reg to some well deserved beers at the pub and an excellent meal at an Indian restaurant. This is 11 PM, it is a clear, windless night at the marina, and all is well.

31 May This is our second day at Port Lincoln and I must say that we are all delighted with the marina, the nearby facilities, and the city (pop about 15000) in general. The marina is a modern one with floating jetties and we are not being charged anything for the stay. It is a delight to see the steady stream of fishing boats moving in and out of the harbour. There must be hundreds of fishing boats here and I’ve heard that Port Lincoln has the biggest Tuna fishing boat fleet in the Southern Hemisphere. Today (Sunday) we visited a boat shop where I got 42 meters of spectra line (don’t ask what it cost) and other urgent bits and pieces for the boat. We hope to have a look at the wind charger this afternoon and it will be in Adelaide where we will deal with the torn sail and other issues, the latest being the failure of the boat’s water pressure pump. Anyway, Reg will spend the night on board and we hope to set sail for Adelaide tomorrow morning.