Might be Elaine 13-19 Mar 1967…..More likely Glenda 26 Mar to 06 Apr 1967
It was a rough sail up from Sidney. I experienced some mal de mar and watched a rough sea from the deck of a 50-foot sailboat rather than the flight deck of a 900 foot aircraft carrier for the first time. We sailed into Moreton Bay and found the tide was running against us and the winds light and fluky. So with the engine was out of commission, dropped anchor to wait for the tide to reverse and winds increase to give us steerage.
Sailing up the river to Brisbane without an engine was going to be a bit problematic, so we put a call into Radio Brisbane to request local knowledge. Shortly, a 75-foot coast guard cutter came along side. They dispatched a nice young officer with some additional charts of the bay and the river. He gave us some very valuable information while also checking out the boat and the ladies. Australians have great respect for sailors, especially female sailors.
The next morning, I was up on deck with Kris surveying our situation. The wind had swung to the south and increased substantially. The heavy, very dark gray sky had colored the sea a greenish-brown hue and the waves were big, broad-shouldered and slow something like the offense line on an NFL team. As each wave hit, the yacht shuddered and was hobby-horsing on her anchor. Kris may have detected my rising concern – first time out, rough passage from Sydney, looking forward to standing on firm ground in a Brisbane pub and now this – pointed to a patch of blue sky that was visible thru the windblown, fractured, scudding clouds and suggested things were looking up. Within half an hour the wind had further increased and now the anchor was dragging. We deployed [launched] our second anchor which took hold, but this was juried rigged and only secured to the boat by tying it around the anchor winch without a fair lead over the side. We had as much line out as we could and Jack was considering adding another line to increase the scope, when he noticed that because the second anchor line did not have a clean lead over the bow, the motion of the boat in the waves was literally sawing thru the line. He found a piece of leather about a foot and a half square and sent me forward to wrap it around and secure it to the second anchor line as chaffing gear. I was working on that project when a big wave hit and the line parted like a shot. It just missed taking off several fingers. Now with that anchor gone and we immediately began dragging again.
I was a bit shaken when I returned to the cockpit, but Jack asked me to give him a hand. He had pulled out some large pieces of precut plywood which fit exactly over each of the windows on the sides of the main cabin. As we were screwing each board over a window and into the beautiful mahogany frame, I realized that with good reason Jack was taking this very seriously and it would serve me to get serious myself!
Several hours later, we had put up our smallest sail, the staysail, so we had some little control. This would give us the ability to move forward, but without much speed and to some degree steady the violent motion caused by the waves. Steerage, however, was now a huge problem when we discovered that at some point dragging out of Brisbane Harbor we had dropped down on a sandbar and shattered our rudder. It was gone!
Jack was a great skipper. His main concern was the safety of the crew. Bottom line – any ideas which we had to better our situation were balanced off against the potential danger. We launched two sea anchors – large accumulations of cloth and other stuff which were tied together and dragged off each side of the fantail on long lines which to some degree stabilized the motion of the yacht and held her on a steadier course.
As the day wore on we began to settle into our situation – one anchor left merrily dragging along and useless; the diesel engine totally out of commission; the rudder shattered, so no real way to steer; winds climbing to the typhoon stage; waves that were rising in height and becoming more chaotic because the trains that were being generated by long fetches in the heart of the typhoon were being reflected from the coast we were paralleling causing extremely confused seas.
One of the interesting things we found out about ourselves was revealed some time after we returned to relative safety. Barbara received a letter from a woman which stated that God had told her that Barbara had prayed to God to save her and that if He did she would become a Christian. Barbara swore that no such supernatural request on her part had ever happened and from what I know of her, I believe her. But this sparked a discussion among us which revolved around our level of fear. I didn’t remember any fantasies of giant waves crashing over us or other methods of quick demise. Our consensus was there had been no time for those thoughts. Just deal with the situation of the moment.
Double Island Point named by Capt Cook 18 May 1770.
Jack calculated that we were approaching rapidly and instructed us to be ready to quickly abandon ship and to that end, pack up anything we wanted to save and to further facilitate, a speedy departure, sleep sitting up in our foul weather gear. I very heroically went around picking up several books, letters and personal items and my favorite tee shirts until I noticed the ladies were packing first-aid, water and food. Oh, I get it, so I junked my treasures and helped with survival items. It then occurred to me that the five of us in our rubber dingy in that sea would be immediately doomed regardless.
We avoided colliding with Double Island by using our staysail. Normally it wouldn’t generate much drive, but with the hurricane force winds, we smoked right along.
Because of my Navy background in communications, Jack asked me to make an emergency call to Brisbane. I took some perverse pleasure in making that call. “Radio Brisbane, Radio Brisbane, This is the yacht Ta’aroa. We are in a mayday situation! Do you read? Over.” After several repeats, Radio Brisbane acknowledged and with further prodding on my part, said they would look into the matter. I repeated the Mayday call the following day and received the following response. “Which yacht??”. After I restated our situation and pressed them as to what actions they had taken on our behalf, it was clear they didn’t have a clue. I called back later that day and they said they had contacted their largest, most seaworthy vessel, the 75 foot cutter which had delivered the charts of Brisbane River to us several days before and they informed us that there was a full blown typhoon and there was no way she was going to leave port. Wonderful!!
So we settled into a routine of standing our watches in the cabin, sticking our heads out occasionally to look for any traffic or anything egregious happening topside, but definitely not going out on deck.
At some point, I noticed that I really had to take a pee and while not especially seasick, I knew getting into the claustrophobic head with its smell and nausea producing tight vertical stripped wallpaper would finish me off, so I held it for several long days. That doesn’t mean I didn’t fantasize numerous methods of relieving myself, but having to get out of foul weather gear using a very short phallus, well it wasn’t the only time I regretted not being extremely well endowed. One plan had me lying on the dining table, cracking the window and feeding the mighty whang out onto the deck. There were several reasons that didn’t work.
Anyhow, this routine continued. The wind was clocking a steady 100 knots, gusting with greater intensity. The huge waves continuously beating the boat moving her all directions, then suddenly, all motion would totally cease and I would grasp at the idea that the storm was over and we would soon be in port on dry, unmoving land, only to be thrown down another wave face into the trough of the next monster wave.