Fatal Storm (2 page)

C
hristmas 1998 was fast approaching and the long talons of an icy winter were creeping across the northern half of the United States. While families were busy preparing for the festive season, John Campbell’s mind was on the warmth he would soon be experiencing almost half a world away. It was going to be tough not spending Christmas with his loved-ones; fortunately they all understood why he wouldn’t be home.

Campbell was due to fly out of Seattle, Washington, on December 23 on a frog-leap trip to Vancouver, Honolulu then Sydney. The day he would lose crossing the international dateline meant he would arrive in Sydney soon after sunrise on Christmas Day. That didn’t matter. December 26 was far more important.

He couldn’t take much gear with him for there would simply be no room for excess baggage aboard the yacht he’d be joining. He knew though, that he must take his seaboots. Bulky as they were, the boots were essential for keeping warm should cold conditions prevail as the fleet approached the coast of Tasmania. His thoughts turned to the old yellow boots he had worn on the odd occasion when sailing on Puget Sound. They were too tight. Over
the years Campbell had learned that one of the many safety factors you apply to your personal equipment for ocean racing was oversize seaboots. If they are too big they are relatively easy to remove should you fall overboard. If they are too tight and can’t be taken off, you might as well be swimming with a house brick on each foot. New boots were indispensable for this adventure and Campbell’s priority in the precious little time he had left at home was to get to the marine store in downtown Seattle and buy them. He did just that. He bought size 12 boots – one-and-a-half sizes larger than he would normally wear.

At only 32 years of age, John Campbell had tried but failed to complete the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on two previous occasions. On the way to the airport, John and his father mused that this would be the third time lucky. John had been assured by his Melbourne-based sailing friend, Peter Meikle, that the yacht in which they would be racing, the 42-foot sloop
Kingurra
, was one of the more robust among the 115 entrants.
Kingurra
’s owner, Peter Joubert, was the designer, and the yacht’s long racing record included no fewer than 14 Hobarts.

With nearly 20 hours of travel behind him, Campbell exited Sydney’s international air terminal bleary-eyed and jet-lagged. The sky was clear and the new day was already warm. As he travelled to the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia (more commonly known as the CYC) on the eastern outskirts of the city’s CBD, he was reminded Christmas was a very different beast in the Southern Hemisphere. A 28 degrees Celsius (82°F) day didn’t seem to gel with the artificial snow and winter Christmas scenes painted on shop windows. There was one familiar thing though…effervescent and smiling children clutching their new toys.

The docks at the Cruising Yacht Club were among the busiest parts of Sydney at that early hour on Christmas
Day. The atmosphere was almost carnivalesque. Race yachts with colourful battle flags flying bobbed at the docks like impatient thoroughbred horses tethered to a rail. Crewmembers from out of town, who were staying aboard their race yachts, were shuttling to and from the showers in the clubhouse. Breakfast was also on the agenda on the wooden deck that extended out over the waters of the harbour. For most it was a hearty feed of bacon and eggs. For others it was a meal that helped soak up the liquid excesses of the Christmas Eve celebrations at the club.

John Campbell felt at home as he made his way along the narrow timber dock to where
Kingurra
was berthed. Campbell was warmly welcomed – old as well as new friends appreciated his effort in joining the crew for the big race. As he stepped aboard he quickly realised what Meikle had meant when he said it was the sort of yacht that would get them to Hobart. He took his bag below to be stowed and the dark timber interior, just like the exterior, said “solid”. This was a sea-boat. He noted the sturdy bunks, the sensibly-sized navigation area and the compact overall layout. There was always something within arm’s length to hang on to in rough weather. Even the toilet – the “head” in nautical terms – was as comfortable as it was well designed.

Seventy-four-year-old Melburnian Peter Joubert was taking part in his 27th Sydney to Hobart. Around mid-morning he and his crew guided
Kingurra
away from the dock and headed for a secluded bay on the harbour. Once the yacht was at anchor Joubert disappeared below to the galley and began preparing the massive roast meal he had been planning the previous two days. While the crew relaxed on deck and absorbed the peaceful surroundings – a tree-lined bay dotted with impressive terracotta-roofed homes – they talked about the great race that was set to
commence in just over 24 hours. The forecast suggested it would be a bit rough the first night out, but that was nothing unusual.

Wonderful aromas wafted from the galley reassuring the regular crewmembers that this would once again be a memorable Christmas feast. John Campbell knew that it would be a heck of a lot better than airline food.

A few miles from where the
Kingurra
crew was enjoying Christmas lunch and praising their chef, another Hobart race crew was enjoying a similar day afloat. Bruce Guy’s
Business Post Naiad
, a 14-year-old Farr 40-footer from Port Dalrymple Yacht Club in northern Tasmania, was one of many yachts at anchor in bushy Quarantine Bay, just inside North Head at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. The yacht had arrived a few days earlier and Guy had been joined by regular crewmembers Rob Matthews, Phil Skeggs, Peter Keats and Jim Rogers. Greg Sherriff, brother of crewman Matt, hooked up with them for the passage across Bass Strait and up to Sydney.

“We had a southerly buster on the way up. It was a great ride,” said Matthews. “We hit 20 knots a couple of times. At one stage we were going so fast that Bruce, who was up forward in the toilet, was hit by a fountain of water that was being forced up the spout in the vanity basin. For a second he couldn’t work out where it was coming from.”

It was the first trip to Sydney for 34-year-old Phil Skeggs, an athletic former footballer who worked as a locksmith in Launceston. He and wife Stephanie were back-fence neighbours to Bruce and Ros Guy. The Skeggses had been married 14 years and had two children – Joshua, aged six, and nine-year-old Kirsty. Skeggs had been sailing for only five years but his fitness
and sporting prowess made him a valuable member of the experienced
Business Post Naiad
crew. The local Launceston media was abuzz with the news that one of their own boys had entered the Sydney to Hobart. The stories that had appeared were accompanied by photographs showing the crew on deck and Bruce and Ros Guy at home in front of the Christmas tree preparing for the adventure.

“Phil was ecstatic about being in such a big city,” said Matthews. “He had an absolutely fabulous few days. He went around taking ‘happy snaps’, as he called them, of the Harbour Bridge, the ferries and Darling Harbour. We just plonked him on the train and let him go off by himself sightseeing for the day. He loved it.”

Christmas Day was a chance for family reunions for some of the Tasmanians. Bruce Guy had his nephew, his wife and his children aboard. Crewmember Peter Keats, whose children Karen and David were living in Sydney, grabbed the opportunity to treat them to something special.

“It was a great day,” said Keats. “Lots of laughing. Everyone really enjoyed it. We all jumped in the water and swam around. It was beautiful and warm – a bit different to home. We even gave the bottom of the boat one last scrub. Then someone jokingly suggested there might be sharks around – so that was it. Everyone got out of the water. It was time for lunch and a couple of quiet drinks.”

That evening, with
Business Post Naiad
tucked safely away back at the dock at the CYC, the crew headed for the crowded outdoor bar to relax over a few beers. The mood was buoyant yet anticipatory, and almost inevitably, the conversation turned to the weather forecast.

“Go easy on the Christmas dinner if you don’t like sailing to windward.” That was the early advice from leading yachting meteorologist Roger “Clouds” Badham in
The Australian
on December 17, 1998. “It all depends on a low that looks like forming off the New South Wales south coast late next week.” Badham was basing his predictions on the current “American model” – a long-range weather forecast developed from a computer analysis of the existing world weather patterns. “Any forecast outside six days for these things can only be described as ‘fuzzy’ at best,” Badham said. “There have been intense and sometimes cyclonic lows active in the Tasman Sea over the past six weeks.”

It was mid-November 1998 when prominent Australian sailor David Witt went to Rarotonga, the capital of the Cook Islands and Witt’s newly adopted home. He had an agreement to train young local sailors and in return he would be able to represent the Pacific island nation in the Sydney Olympics. He also had a sponsor for the entry of a maxi yacht for the Sydney to Hobart and he wanted the yacht to represent the Cooks. Witt and his Olympic crewman, Rod Howell, headed to the home of “Papa Tom” – the man who had opened the way for them to Olympic competition. His real name is Sir Thomas Davis and he had been the nation’s Prime Minister for 10 years from 1978. He claims he still does not know why the Queen knighted him.

Papa Tom, a very large, powerful, grey-haired man is, to say the least, a colourful character. He has two passions – sailing and riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle.
Everyone knows him and everyone waves each time he blasts down the dusty roads. When not riding his Harley he drives an old Jaguar – the only one on the island. His home is at the edge of the foothills on what the locals call “the back of the island”. It has been built in the style of a chalet with a high-pitched roof, and is sited on a large area of lush green lawn dotted with tall, coconut-heavy palms. The interior of the home is spacious and open, and surrounding it is a wide verandah – features that maximise the air-flow while minimising the heat.

On the day of their visit, Witt and Howell were warmly welcomed by Papa Tom onto the large verandah. The trio settled back into the comfortable chairs and within seconds the loquacious Witt was divulging his plan. Papa Tom liked the idea.

Witt then took it to the next stage, recalls Papa Tom.

“He came to me and said, ‘If this plan succeeds will you sail with us?’ I was stunned,” said Papa Tom. “I said, ‘Hey, I’m 81 years old. I’d only get in the way. I can’t pull any ropes.’ But inside me the sailor said, ‘Do it’. If you have the ocean and sailing in your blood you cannot refuse an invitation to sail in a great race like the Sydney to Hobart – even if you are 81. For me it was a dream come true.”

Papa Tom had been educated in New Zealand and Australia. In the winter of 1952 he sailed a small yacht with his wife, two children and two crew across the Pacific from New Zealand to South America, en route to Boston where he was to become a lecturer and researcher at Harvard.

“That was a horrendous trip. It was in a 44-foot ketch and we were sailing in mid-winter – the first small yacht ever to sail west to east in the roaring forties at that time of year. It was a 7000 mile voyage and we had 14 days of hell.”

He spent 20 years in America and went on to become a civilian researcher for the military where he was closely aligned with the American space program. He pioneered much of the research into life-support systems for America’s first astronauts.

“In the early 1970s I was asked by the Chiefs of the Cook Islands to come back home and straighten up the place because they were in all sorts of trouble. They had enormous social and economic problems. After seeing the problems I decided that I definitely had to do something about it. I then went on to become Prime Minister from 1978 to 1987.

“I say with pride that I took the country from near the bottom of the economic barrel among the independent states of the Pacific to the very top. Then it was decided that they could do it all themselves – so I went out. Now they’ve gone all the way back to where they started. That’s life.”

Papa Tom built two large Polynesian sailing canoes between 1992 and 1995 and sailed them extensively around the Pacific. The voyages were to prove his theories on the migratory and trading routes taken by his ancestors centuries before.

On December 18, 1998 Papa Tom flew into Sydney and began preparing for his newest adventure – the Sydney to Hobart race.

After representing Great Britain in the Star class two-man keelboat in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Glyn Charles and crewman Mark Covell turned their attention to Sydney and the 2000 Olympic Games. They were proud of their 11th placing outright on the Olympic course off Savannah, an historic and very beautiful city on Georgia’s Atlantic coast. They had taken out third and
fourth places in two of the heats against some of the very best sailors in the world, and were suitably encouraged to mount a strong campaign for the year 2000.

Charles was an accomplished yachting coach who dreamed of one day winning an Olympic medal, and his life was going exactly the way he wanted. He was one of the fortunate few able to make a career out of the sport he enjoyed so much. He was born in land-locked Winchester in 1965 and it was on Chichester Harbour, south west of London, that he began his sailing career. His talent for racing emerged when he joined the Royal Yachting Association’s Youth Squad. Charles was considered a late starter in the world of competitive sailing, having adopted the sport at the age of 13.

Although ranked in the top three, his desire to be selected for the British team for the World Youth Championship was frustrated by other talented sailors. Undeterred, Charles pushed himself even harder and eventually he won the national championship in one of the world’s most competitive Olympic classes – the 14-foot single-handed Laser dinghy. It was his first major step up the international sailing ladder.

The Olympic Games were his target, but in 1988 and 1992 his efforts to represent Britain in the three-man Soling Keelboat class were foiled by the talents of his arch rival Lawrie Smith. In 1996 this hurdle was finally cleared when Charles beat Smith for the Olympic Star class berth.