Fatal Storm (9 page)

At the controls of one of them was Gary Ticehurst, chief pilot with the ABC television network in Sydney and a man who had become somewhat of a race legend over the previous 16 years. Flying helicopters was his first love and his pet assignment each year was to shadow the Hobart fleet and be the aerial camera platform that supplied the vision to the television news pool. His efforts had resulted in spectacular footage being beamed around the world of the 1984 and 1993 events, two of the roughest races on record. In 1993 Ticehurst took part in a number of search operations that successfully
located upturned and badly damaged yachts. Each year he would spend up to two months planning the filming and communications strategy – how the signals would be sent back…what frequencies would be used…would Merimbula be used as a base to transmit all the signals…how he would talk to the yachts. Prior to the actual start, preparations for the 1998 event had been running smoothly.

“I went out to the ABC and readied the helicopter. The frustration really started because the fuel pump at the ABC failed. We couldn’t fuel the chopper and it was less than 30 minutes before we had to be in the air. There was no way the pump was going to be fixed by the time I was due to do the coverage. Eventually we went to Channel 9 and did the shuttle service over there all day. It was tiring but at least we got the chopper going.” This was the first of a number of long and tiring days for Ticehurst.

While many yachts stayed in the vicinity of the start line off Nielsen Park Beach – about three miles up-harbour from the heads – some of the more serious contenders for line and handicap honours cruised to the harbour entrance. The aim was to let everyone on board get a feel for the conditions that were developing out on the ocean – and to help settle any pre-race jitters. They were greeted by a sparkling blue ocean which had gently rolling swells coming in from the north east. Some of the more commercially-inclined yachts sailed the five miles inside the harbour up to Manly, turned, then set the spinnaker that was plastered with their sponsor’s logo and cruised back to the start line.

Half an hour before the official 1pm start, most of the 115 contenders had manoeuvred themselves into the
starting area. Large circular Telstra decals on the bow, plus flags fluttering from the stern, identified them as race boats. The yachts left a lattice-like pattern of white wakes on the blue water as they crisscrossed the harbour with only mainsails set. It was the aquatic equivalent of thoroughbreds parading in the ring before the start of the Melbourne Cup. The massive maxis with their towering rigs were the most easily identifiable. Sail number US17 was
Sayonara
, C1
Brindabella
, M10 was Grant Wharington’s exciting new
Wild Thing
and 9431 was
Marchioness.
The
Marchioness
crew looked as pleased as punch, for they knew the strengthening nor’easterly breeze during the day could give them an edge on the downward run. They also knew that a southerly would hamper their progress –
Marchioness
was far from fast when sailing to windward.

One yacht that certainly stood out was David Witt’s
Nokia
– a ketch with a bright blue hull and the sponsor’s name written proudly on the side.
Nokia
’s sail number, COK1, revealed that this yacht was the first big boat to be racing internationally under the flag of the Cook Islands. Papa Tom could be seen standing on the deck absorbing the excitement, his long, shiny grey hair flowing in the breeze.

The dark-hulled radio relay vessel
Young Endeavour
with its crew of 12 officers and 18 trainees aged between 18 and 23 made a magnificent sight as it moved slowly down the harbour past the race yachts and spectator craft. It would wait for the race fleet outside the heads. Lew Carter didn’t take in the scenery. He was in the radio room, still frustrated by poor communications.

“I found it difficult to contact some of the yachts. We probably kidded ourselves [about the problem] at the time, thinking, it’s only because of where we are. Then, when we got outside the heads we still had problems.
I noticed that the squelch button on the radio wasn’t working at all. It acts as a sort of fine tuner on the radio to give you your best possible signal. I then tried to contact Penta Comstat, a land-based communications station located north of Sydney, but the signal that I was getting from them was non-existent. I had to do something about it.”

Carter started to weigh his options.

The nor’easter meant it would be an upwind leg from the “invisible” starting line (a line between the start boat on the east side of the harbour and a buoy to the west) to the heads and beyond. This would in turn necessitate tighter manoeuvring and skilled handling. Collisions were a distinct possibility. A downwind start where the harbour became a concentrated blaze of brightly-coloured spinnakers would have been a visual bonus on such a beautiful summer day. It wasn’t to be.

The smallest yachts racing, those around 30 feet (nine metres) in length, like Jim Dunstan’s tiny 1981 race winner,
Zeus II
, had just six crewmembers aboard. The maxis, measuring some 78 feet (24 metres) in length, had around 26 aboard – the equivalent of two rugby league teams.

At 12.50pm the
boom!
from a cannon aboard the start boat and the raising of flags signalled the 10 minute countdown. Every 30 seconds the helmsmen would ask the crew how much time there was to the start gun. The helmsmen and tacticians were talking, fine tuning their start strategy while the man on the bow and others amidships warned of any yachts that might be in close proximity.

Boom!
Another cannon shot signalled five minutes to go. Most crews were by now starting to line up their yachts, hustling for a good position. As well as being a
lookout, the man or woman on the tip of the bow was beginning to send hand signals back to the brains-trust in the cockpit. Three fingers up – three boat lengths from the line; two fingers – two lengths; one finger – one length; closed fist – on the line and holding. The calls differed according to position, but one thing was for certain – no one wanted to cross the line early.

On the dot of 1pm Australia’s golden girl of swimming, Susie O’Neill, tugged the cord that fired the cannon signalling the race was underway. It was a clean start. But there was already drama. On the eastern shore the race’s biggest boat, the 83-foot
Nokia
, had collided with
Sword of Orion
and Hugh Treharne’s cruiser-racer,
Bright Morning Star.

Sword of Orion
had been damaged. Some stanchions supporting the lifelines – the safety fence around the yacht’s perimeter – had been torn out of the deck and there was a small crease in the aluminium mast. Treharne checked his boat and discovered the damage to
Bright Morning Star
was superficial.
Nokia
’s only wounds were scarred topsides near the bow. The crews heatedly debated who was right and wrong and protest flags – bright red squares with a dovetailed trailing edge – were hoisted. But there was nothing more to do but get on with the racing and sort out the rest in the protest room in Hobart.

The incident didn’t detract from the stunning spectacle of 115 yachts powering their way towards the Sydney heads in a strengthening sea breeze. The armada of spectator craft joined the charge, churning the narrow laneways reserved for them along the harbour shores into a blur of whitewater. The race yachts tacked from one side of the harbour to the other and after only minutes of racing the maxis,
Sayonara
,
Brindabella
and
Wild Thing
, were at the head of the pack.

Less than 15 minutes after the start,
Sayonara
showed the fleet the way around the first buoy off South Head. She continued in this authoritative manner, rounding the offshore mark ahead of the rest before turning south, setting her spinnaker aloft and accelerating away in perfect downwind sailing conditions.

“Sayonara Sydney.”

A
southerly buster is a summer-time weather phenomenon that spreads its influence over much of the NSW coast. It is a bit like Mother Nature turning on the air-conditioning to bring relief from the oppressive heat and humidity. Its name was originally a southerly
burster
and has its origins in the early days of European settlement. For many decades inner-city residents of Sydney called it the “brickfielder” because the change brought with it clouds of red clay dust from the St Peters brickyard.

“It is a particularly vicious form of a cooler southerly change – a shallow cold front that becomes trapped on the eastern side of the Great Dividing Range that runs down the Australian east coast,” says Roger Badham. “It is locally enhanced by the strong temperature gradient across the front. The most violent southerly busters arrive in the Sydney region in the afternoon or evening, enhanced by the afternoon heating ahead of the change. They move up along
the coast with clear or partly cloudy skies, sometimes with scattered thunderstorms.

“Southerly busters are most vigorous on the Illawarra and Central Coasts, particularly between Ulladulla and Newcastle. Immediately ahead of the buster the wind dies, then the southerly winds build very quickly (usually over 10 to 15 minutes) to be 30 to 40 knots and occasionally with gusts of up to 50 or 60 knots as it passes. However, the strong winds are generally short lived, easing to be less than 30 knots within a few hours.”

Sometimes a southerly buster is nothing more than a slight glitch in the Sydney to Hobart, a chilly whisper blowing only 20 or 30 knots and disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. But occasionally they charge up the coast gusting up to 80 knots. They often follow strong nor’easters and the challenge for everyone racing is to try to pick just when they will hit. When the change does arrive the yacht must be converted from a downwind racing configuration into one which will cope with the approaching blast. The wind effectively rotates through 180 degrees.

Sometimes the front’s arrival can be quite daunting. It is heralded by a rolling, cigar-shaped, lead-coloured cloud that stretches from horizon to horizon. Often there will be no visual warning in a clear sky. The only thing to be seen will be a sudden darkening of the ocean surface ahead – the influence of wind on water. In just minutes conditions can go from being near windless, from astern, to having more than 40 knots on the bow.

It’s like sailing into a brick wall.

There is another unpredictable and challenging element that comes into the racing equation when a
southerly buster blows – the fast-flowing southerly current that streams down the NSW coast, bringing warm tropical water from Queensland’s Coral Sea. It can run like a river at three or more knots. Pit that massive current against a 40-knot gale from the opposite direction, and the ocean soon swells into liquid mountains.

The
Sayonara
team had impressed everyone with some slick work after the spinnaker blew apart just south of the Sydney heads. In less than three minutes a new one had been set. It was obvious in those conditions that the American entry wouldn’t get everything its own way.
Brindabella
, sporting a powerful new asymmetrical spinnaker, was pushing out to sea in search of the strongest current. She had drawn level with
Sayonara
, but close behind, the syndicate-owned
Marchioness
was making its move.

Together with
Wild Thing
, the big trio headed the race at speeds approaching 20 knots. It was exciting and satisfying racing but every crew was fully aware they were now at the business end of proceedings. Speed maximisation was paramount. Sails were continually trimmed while the helmsman worked the yacht down the lingering blue swells in an effort to promote surfing. Long white wakes streamed astern like vapour trails. There was constant talk about the weather, especially when the menacing grey and white clouds of the thunderstorm, forecast for the evening, could be seen building to the south. Below deck, navigators were watching weather fax machines disgorge the latest meteorological information.

Aboard
Young Endeavour
radio operator Lew Carter and his assistants, Michael and Audrey Brown, were still being hampered by communication problems. Just south of Sydney, Carter decided to contact the technician who’d installed the radio. His advice to Carter was to “continue with it for a while and see how you get on”. That didn’t sit too comfortably with the trio. Carter realised the last opportunity to correct any problems would be off Wollongong, 45 miles south of Sydney. Once again he contacted the technician.

“I wanted him to know that I wasn’t happy at all,” said Carter. “We thought we were going to get a hectic Hobart this year and we needed everything to be spot on with the radios. The guy said that he had another radio at home. My problem was how the hell was I was going to get it on board. Fortunately for us the police launch
Nemesis
was proceeding down the coast with the fleet as far as Eden. The obvious option was to have the technician drive from Sydney to Wollongong with the new radio. He could be picked up by
Nemesis
there and be brought out to us.

“There was quite a swell running – about three metres – and a strong wind blowing, but still the
Nemesis
crew did a marvellous job. The technician was worried about how he would get both on and off
Young Endeavour
in those conditions, so I did a bit of a con job on him and told him all would be OK. I knew that once I had him on board I had no more worries. It wouldn’t worry me if he couldn’t get off because we had our new radio and that was all we wanted. He could come all the way to Hobart with us as far as I was concerned. As it was we did get him off and home. Four minutes after he left we had our first ‘sked’ with the fleet – loud and clear.”

By 3pm, two hours after the start, Roger Badham had returned to his home south of Sydney. The moment he arrived he went straight to his office and hurriedly downloaded the latest weather prognosis from the international computer models.

He didn’t like what he saw.

That afternoon the author spoke with him.

“Mundle…Clouds here. I’ve just looked at all the latest charts and there’s only one thing I can say. If I were on half those yachts out there this afternoon I’d be taking my spinnaker down right now and turning back to Sydney. They are going to get hammered. There’s a bomb about to go off in Bass Strait. A low is going to develop and intensify. They are going to get 50 knots, maybe more, and huge seas. This race is going to be worse than 1993.”

The low pressure zone formed over Bass Strait as a result of a sharp cold upper air trough that slowed, tilted and deepened as it engaged warm humid air drawn in from the north east. Badham described it as “a text book frontal low pressure development”, quite common across the waters immediately south of Australia. The region of cold upper air could be seen clearly on satellite images as it crossed the Great Australian Bight on the days immediately before December 26. The “cold pool of air” became cut off from the upper westerly flow when the system deepened to the surface during the early hours of Sunday the 27th. It was this region of cold air that brought summer snow to the high country of Victoria and NSW that day.

The official race forecast issued from Sydney at 1450hrs on the 26th read as follows:

SYNOPTIC SITUATION: A high near New Zealand is ridging onto the central NSW coast.
A low 995hPa near Lord Howe Island is slow moving. A cold front is over central Victoria.

WARNINGS: Storm Warning is current south from Merimbula.

Gale Warning is current south from Broken Bay.

WIND: North to north-east wind 20/25 knots ahead of a W/SW change 25/35 knots, with stronger gusts, expected near Jervis Bay around midnight–2am and then near Sydney around 3am–5am Sunday. Wind may tend briefly north west 15/20 knots prior to the change.

WAVES: 1 to 2 metres, rising to 3 metres offshore with W/SW change.

SWELL: 1 to 2 metres.

WEATHER: Scattered showers and thunderstorms developing tonight ahead of the change then clearing tomorrow.

OUTLOOK FOR NEXT 48 HOURS: Winds moderating north of Jervis Bay Sunday night. Gale to storm force W winds south of Jervis Bay expected to moderate Monday evening.

The Bass Strait forecast issued from Victorian Bureau of Meteorology Office at 1646hrs read:

EASTERN BASS STRAIT: North-easterly wind 20/30 knots in the far east at first. A west/south-west change at 20/30 knots extending throughout this evening and increasing to 30/40 knots tomorrow morning and to 45/55 knots during the afternoon. Seas/swell 2 to 4 metres increasing 3 to 5 metres during the morning and 4 to 6 metres during the afternoon.

According to that forecast there was going to be one hell of a battle in Bass Strait.

At that point the crews hadn’t heard the latest reports, but already the experienced sailors suspected something big was brewing. The north-easterly wind was strengthening all the time and was now well above the predicted velocity of around 25 knots. The sea breeze and favourable current remained so strong throughout the afternoon and evening that the entire fleet was ahead of the race-record pace set by the state-of-the-art German maxi,
Morning Glory
, two years earlier. Lew Carter, Michael Brown and the
Young Endeavour
skipper, Lieutenant Commander Neil Galletly, noted the fleet was flying. They were twice as far from Sydney as they were most years.

“We discussed with the skipper what we would do,” recalls Carter. “We always talk our own tactics throughout the race because it’s important for us to be in a position where we can be of assistance if needed, even though that’s not our primary role. We always try and keep ourselves about mid-fleet, maybe with a leaning towards the back. We were up on the bridge and had a bit of a chat about the weather patterns and the current. We’d had a look at the chart and were talking about the problems that we might experience down the bottom, off the south-east corner of the mainland. The depth of the water drops dramatically as soon as you get beyond the 100 fathom line down there. We were thinking about the convergence of three to four knots of very warm current against waves from a south-westerly change. We decided if we were going to have any problems it would be in that area.”

They were right.

By mid-afternoon Gary Ticehurst had reconfigured the ABC helicopter so that it was ready to cover the race and he and his two passengers, Scott Alle, a producer for
the ABC and cameraman Peter Sinclair, began their chase of the yachts down the coast.

“The plan was, as in most years, to position at Merimbula for the night,” recalls Ticehurst. “We usually leave so we can arrive in Merimbula about half an hour before last light – it’s 185 nautical miles south of Sydney. With such a strong following wind I was hoping we could cover the lead yachts and then come back in. On the way to them, and while going through the smaller yachts, we were listening to the weather forecasts. They were predicting 40 to 50 knots. They said the change would come around about midnight with local thunderstorms all the way down to the coast.

“Sure enough, they were spot on with the latter part. You could see the lightning. It was that typical sultry grey afternoon and you could feel that it was going to happen. One thing that was pretty impressive was the speed at which the entire fleet was travelling south. The forecast for 40 to 50 knots the next day didn’t concern us. In fact

it excited us. I thought, this is going to be a little bit tougher than just a southerly buster. This is going to last a day or two. We’re going to get some action – great vision.

“When we arrived at Merimbula that evening we literally had to poke our way around the thunderstorms just to get to the airport. There were so many of them. It was pouring with rain, torrential rain. We were certain then that the fleet was going to cop it overnight – there’d be a few things going on. We wanted to be out over them at first light.”

Throughout the afternoon and early evening the crews were enjoying exhilarating rides. Then, as darkness closed, they had the added spectacle of the huge thunderstorms that Ticehurst had encountered. They were moving out from the land and across the course.

“What we saw was almost unbelievable,” said John Messenger, sailing master of the maxi
Marchioness.
“The lightning was all over the place – horizontal and vertical. It was horrific. It just lit up the night. It was incessant. The trouble was we didn’t know if the storm was going to bring the change or just stay as a storm. We were always on full alert. There was a bit of apprehension on board.”
Marchioness
was then at least level and possibly ahead of
Sayonara
and
Brindabella
, which were farther out to sea. That situation changed in an instant.

“The wind was coming from around 035 degrees and blowing at around 20 knots. We had the spinnaker on and were really flying. We were surprised that the wind didn’t drop when the thunderstorm got to us. Instead it held and began flicking between 035 and 350. We were forever chasing it – changing course all the time to keep the wind at the right angle over the stern. It was as though the
wind couldn’t make up its mind as to what it wanted to do. Suddenly one big wave got under our quarter and lifted the stern. We lost control and broached wildly. Now this is a big boat, but she stayed down, on her side, for what I guess was between three and four minutes.”