190nm to Geraldton!

As planned, we were motoring past Steep Point as the first flickers of daylight arrived. Nautical twilight was at 0510 hours, that being the time when the sun is twelve degrees below the horizon, but provides enough light to discern outlines of terrestrial objects and also still allows sailors to take reliable readings via well known stars. In other words, enough light to be able to navigate in fairly close quarters as we were doing in exiting the Steep Point channel, which is probably about 1 - 1.5 nm wide at the mouth.

As we have come to expect, the first few hours coming out of Steep Point are a bit miserable. The sea refracting off the cliffs sends swell in a direction back out to sea, where it meets the natural swell coming the other way - this makes for an uncomfortable, bumpy ride as we rise and fall between swells. It also makes it hard to get the boat running nicely, and with any momentum.

The wind wasn’t doing anything much in particular. It was on the nose at about 5 - 8 knots and, combined with the lumpiness, it was a bit ugly. We hadn’t put any sails up, as with the little wind we had, they would just flop around making any progress out of the channel seem even lumpier than it actually was. It was just a case of being patient and seeing our way out of the lumpiness and into smoother waters.

After about and hour and a half, we were able to get our mainsail up and gain some assistance but there really wasn’t too much going on in the way of wind, other than annoyingly being about 6 knots on the nose.

This continued pretty much all night, making it a long night with not too much to write about. Some excitement did eventuate, however, when we acquired a hitch-hiker for the night. A passing Pied Cormorant was obviously over the general flip-floppiness of the wind and decided to park himself in a comfortable position (one with the best view) on top of the surfboards we had strapped to the roof. This little guy stayed with us for the entirety of the night. Just after dawn, he waddled his way down towards the tramp, sat for a while to contemplate his next move, then launched himself into the air and off to greener pastures.

By morning, we were abeam Port Gregory and making slow progress at about 5 knots. It was shaping up to be a long day with continuing light and fluky winds, but knowing a fresh afternoon southerly would be arriving not long after lunch, so extra incentive to get into Geraldton.

It was around this time that we had a couple of surges on the port engine, whereby it lost power but then regained revs and carried on. I was thinking it must be a fuel issue and so quickly changed the fuel filter on the engine. Because only one engine was affected, I didn’t think to check the main fuel filter that sits adjacent to the fuel tank and which is the primary fuel filter for both engines.

We continued on and about 10 miles out of Geraldton the port engine died and I wasn’t able to revive it. We were down to one engine.  By now, we were well into the afternoon and had been up and about for some 30 plus hours, so we were fatigued and feeling the effects of a long, lumpy passage.

As we approached the entrance to the northern channel of Geraldton Port, we had a 15knot southerly on our nose and right on cue the starboard engine stopped. Nicky took the helm and I dived down into the engine bay, changing the fuel filter and trying to work out what was happening. We were doing sailing circles around the ships at anchor trying to resolve the issue and come up with a bit of a plan about how we were going to get into Champion Bay.

I fielded a call to the local volunteer marine rescue, but, to be honest, they weren’t all that helpful and pretty much suggested that as we were a yacht we should just sail in. They said they would let the Port know of our situation and left us to it.

After a quick look at the charts, and working out that we didn’t need to stay 100% in the channel, we started tacking our way in towards the Port. We received a call from the Geraldton Port Authority to see how we were going and they stated they would come out in the small pilot vessel and give us some support.

We were making slow progress, and after coming alongside and realising there wasn’t much they could do, the pilot boat left us and we continued tacking up to the northern side of the port entrance. This involved making our way through channel markers, cray pots, yacht club course markers and of course a marine farm – all in now 20 knots of southerly!

We were in the final stages and about 1 mile from the anchorage when the small pilot boat reappeared and suggested they give us a tow in the final section, as it was a bit tight in terms of trying to tack in.

By this stage, we were cooked, so we agreed. After turning into wind and dropping our sails, we were effectively bobbing around with no ability to manoeuvre our vessel. In the course of attempting to secure a line, and in what seemed like slow motion and time standing still, the pilot vessel backed into us, striking our starboard hull. CRUNCH!! Nicky, standing on the tramp at the bow with ropes in hand, barely missed going overboard as the boat lurched upon impact.

All I remember was the crunch of fibreglass, a sinking feeling in my stomach and then, after determining we weren’t going to sink, a feeling of resignation that what had happened had happened and we just wanted to get ourselves into the anchorage.

We eventually got a line on board and they towed us the short distance into the anchorage at Champion Bay, just outside the yacht club where we were finally able to anchor and secure ourselves. The poor old pilot boat skipper was a bit beside himself, but given the situation and that he was trying to help, we didn’t really feel any angst towards him.

In the back of my mind, I also knew that whilst we had damaged the boat, we were both safe and we were in a town with a couple of boat builders, so I knew it could be fixed and we would move on.

After we had been left alone, we surveyed the damage which consisted of quite a large crunch well above the waterline on the front of the starboard hull. We found some plastic sheeting and 100 mile an hour tape and set about covering it up just to keep it dry, even though it was up high out of the water.

Everything else could wait until tomorrow. After some food, drink and some sombre reflection it was lights out, knowing that we would have a couple of big days of organising ahead of us.