For my significant birthday this year, I have gifted myself a sailing trip into the Southern Ocean with Ocean Sailing Expeditions. Our aim was to sail from Sandy Bay near Hobart, Tasmania, down the d’Entrecasteaux Channel into the Southern Ocean, around the South and South-West Capes and then up to Bathurst Bay and hopefully on to Macquarie Harbour.
The rest of the crew were flying in from the mainland, but the expedition yacht Silver Fern was moored only a hundred metres away from my own Cheval de Mer, so on the appointed afternoon I strolled across and gave a hail.
Skipper John popped his head out, and almost immediately I found myself repairing a broken flag mount. Over the afternoon the other seven paying crew members arrived, along with the yacht’s mate Liv. Everybody seemed interesting and agreeable, and together we fitted the furling genoa which had just come back from being repaired. At some point in its life, it had been converted from a regular genoa, and thus had far more batten pockets than you might expect, aligned in different directions, but in the end we got it sorted. Unfortunately it was clear that there were still some areas that were worn out, so we’ll have to hope for the best in the Roaring Forties.
The next task was to hank on the staysail, which was an easier job, but it soon became clear that the sail itself was full of holes so we took it off again and replaced it with an orange storm jib.
Having been assigned our bunks and our safety gear, we assembled a chicken risotto dinner, washed it down with beer and wine, and then popped out to the local pub for a pint.
The crew retired to quarters. My bunk is in the bow, upper starboard. Instead of a lee cloth, the upper bunks have pulleys that allow them to be folded up at an angle, trapping the occupant safely in a small space against the hull when at sea. I’d not seen that configuration before, and while it seemed practical, I wondered how much space would be left for me and how I would ever get out again.
The bedding consists of a sheet and a single thin blanket. We had previously been assured by the owner that the temperature below is maintained at a steady 21 degrees, but in fact the boat is unheated and next morning those of us who had not packed sleeping bags woke shivering. Presumably the owner is used to the South Pacific and has not encountered Tasmanian conditions.
Luckily, as the token Tasmanian aboard, I still had access to my car, so I drove a bunch of us in to the Hobart camping shops to purchase sleeping bags and fleeces.
The tasks for the morning began with a trip to the fuel dock to fill the tanks with fuel and water. She’s a big boat – seventy-two feet – and the wind was up and the crew untested, but with the help of the bow thruster and willing hands, we warped her in. I was given the task of checking the spare jerry-cans lashed to the deck, and found that they were nearly all empty, so we fixed that.
To Quarantine Bay
Out in the Derwent, we practiced our man-overboard procedure on a sacrificial fender. With a big boat like this, you can’t crash-gybe and stop dead in the water and haul the casualty back over the rail. The boom itself weighs several tonnes and you really don’t want it moving quickly, and the freeboard is far too high to reach somebody in the water. The plan was to drop the sails and motor back to the victim, winch Pieter in a waterproof survival suit into the water to grab them, and then winch them both out. It all worked rather well.
On the way down the Derwent to Bruny Island, we spent some time getting used to Silver Fern. The steering wheel is connected to the rudder by means of hydraulic rams, which give no feedback at all to the helm. The only way to understand the rudder angle is to keep an eye on the electronic display on the binnacle. Generally it seemed that the easiest way to steer was to use the controls on the auto helm.
While hoisting the main, it had quickly become clear that the first reefing line had lost its integrity, with the core separated from the sheath and about as much use as a wet noodle. On the way in to Quarantine Bay, with the main still up, we spent about an hour replacing it. We needed to attach a new line to the end of the old one and thread it through the system, but there wasn’t enough room to get a splice through the pulleys, so we needed to sew the two ropes together. This took a few attempts, but luckily Mish had been a trauma nurse and was a dab hand with the needle.
Finally we dropped the pick in Quarantine Bay in North Bruny Island, not so very far from our starting point but with a lot of essential tasks under our collective belt. The bay promised shelter from the current northerly and the forecast westerlies.
The anchorage was calm and comfortable, and in the morning Shien, Pieter and myself dropped into the water for a refreshing ocean swim.
Breakfast was a free-for-all from the available ingredients, but once we had cleared up, we all separated into our assigned watches. We have three watches, with a four-hour rota during the day, which is more about cleaning and food preparation than navigation, and two-hour cockpit watches if on passage overnight.
Then it was time for passage planning. Up until now, we only had a vague plan that we would head South, round the South Capes and then try to spend some time up the West coast in Bathurst Bay or Macquarie Harbour or both, but we knew that there were a bunch of fast-moving lows in the Southern Ocean.
Silver Fern has a Starlink internet connection, so we use Windy to forecast the pressure systems. Usually this displays average wind speeds, but for the Southern Ocean’s extreme conditions it is more helpful to use the gust overlay. On the Windy snapshot below, pinky purple is around 40 knots and blue is around 60 knots. It is clear that we won’t be going West into the teeth of the storm today, but there is potential for a gap opening up around Tuesday.
We settled on a plan. We would squeeze as far South as we could manage while remaining in the sheltered d’Entrecasteaux Channel, and wait for a weather window.