Fatal Storm (16 page)

“We were sending choppers 50, 70 and more miles offshore and when they were coming back they were bucking a hellish headwind,” said Francis. “Some of them, I suspect, were probably coming back close to empty. We were very aware of that, so we had to make sure when we tasked the helicopters that we weren’t putting them into an absolutely ridiculous situation. Of course once they got out there it went tactical on their part and there was nothing more we could do for them.”

Dave Gray was thankful the emergency had happened in not too remote an area – further towards Tasmania would have spelled even greater disaster because of the limited search and rescue assets available.

A
ccording to the Australian Constitution, a Naval ship cannot put to sea for a search and rescue mission before a due process of elimination is undertaken. The situation must be of sufficient severity and be beyond the scope of every available resource, starting with the local police force and ending with whatever facilities the State might be able to deliver. If it is deemed to be simply too treacherous for any of these authorities, then, and only then, are the armed forces called in.

After being warned in the late afternoon that his ship, HMAS
Newcastle
, might be needed for race search and rescue operations, Commander Steve Hamilton began planning ways to reduce the normal “spin-up” time from eight hours to around four. He strongly suspected his ship would be called out on the night of the 27th of December. Sure enough, at 11pm the telephone rang at his home. It was Maritime Headquarters saying it was time to go. The Commander was told it was uncertain what exactly the ship’s task would be.

There was a scramble to contact crewmembers at that hour and the ship’s car went and picked up the second officer and then collected Hamilton and the
executive officer. After a quick brain-storm on the way to Garden Island, they organised responsibilities and as soon as they arrived at the dock, set about accomplishing their various tasks. Hamilton went to his cabin and met with senior officers before going to the operations room to initiate a review of search and rescue procedure. Lieutenant Mike Harris, the warfare officer and the navigator from HMAS
Melbourne
, was aboard in place of
Newcastle
’s usual navigator who was on leave interstate.

“It was hectic,” said Hamilton. “There was a telephone network going on. People would be phoning five or six people and they’d in turn ring another five or six. We were waiting for answers to come back, all the time reviewing the people we didn’t have. We got the doctor who was on stand-by at HMAS
Penguin.
We rang St Vincent’s Hospital, which is nearby, and got some of the extra bits and pieces we decided we needed. The fact was we didn’t know what to expect out there so we were going for the worst case scenario rather than the best.”

At 3.30am, with the ship’s powerful turbines raring to go, the crew of HMAS
Newcastle
assembled on the flight deck at the stern. A head count was done – 75 of the usual complement of 200 were present. Checks were made – how many engine room watch-keepers, radar operators, helicopter controllers? It was a bare-bones crew but it was enough for this mission. They had the capacity to remain at sea for eight to 10 days if need be. At 4am, in the steely silence of a Sydney morning, the dock lines were dropped and
Newcastle
edged towards the main channel that would take it out to the Sydney heads and the open ocean. As the ship passed between the two towering cliffs that stand as bastions at the harbour entrance, the crew had a taste of what was to come.

“The first indication that it really was rough came when we went through the heads and turned south,” recalls Hamilton. “We took a big roll – like 35 or 40 degrees. When you’re a captain you sit there, and you hang on, and you listen for
clunk
,
clunk
,
clunk
which tells you something’s not been secured. We passed that test.”

The ship’s speed was increased to 25 knots as the pursuit of the Hobart race fleet began. However it was soon obvious such a speed could not be maintained in the horrible head seas.
Newcastle
was taking a pounding. Hamilton called for 19 knots and as the lights of Sydney disappeared astern he went to the operations room to discuss with the crew their plan of action.

Soon after 9am on December 27, just when the crew of
Brindabella
was battening down for a battle across Bass Strait against 50 knot winds, a twin-engine high-winged aircraft, an Aero Commander, swooped out of the sky and started circling the yacht. Experienced crew knew immediately who it was – Richard Bennett, the highly respected yachting photographer out of Hobart.

It was the start of what Bennett had hoped would be a big day for his business. Forty-eight hours later he would set up shop on the edge of Constitution Dock in Hobart and sell to yacht owners and crews photos of their yachts during the race. It was something he had done with considerable success for the previous 23 years. The big difference this year was the weather. While most of the “yachties” thought otherwise, Bennett saw it as “fantastic” – rough conditions invariably meant spectacular shots.

The TasAir aircraft was piloted by Ralph Schwertner with John Townley as co-pilot. Bennett was wedged in the back against an open door so he could capture the widest possible angle. His daughter, Alice, also a
photographer, was sitting alongside her father and was assisting him with the quick re-loading of film. Bennett photographed
Brindabella
then did the same with
Sayonara
, which was seven miles to the east. They then decided to return to Merimbula and refuel so there would be plenty of time to cover the bulk of the fleet in the same region in the early afternoon. They had no inkling from forecasts at that stage just how bad the weather would become.

“We flew back out to the same location expecting to see the yachts in 45 to 50 knots,” said Bennett. “We knew the barometer was amazingly low at the time but we didn’t expect what we saw. It was only when we went down low to look at the first yacht we spotted –
Bobsled
– that we realised how bad it was. I reckon there must have been 80 knots of bloody wind – not 40. In places the wind had blown the wave tops nearly flat and there were streams of spume coming off them. It was pouring with rain. You couldn’t see where the sea ended and the bloody sky began. The air was full of salt. The scene with
Bobsled
was amazing – a pocket maxi just going sideways with a storm trysail up. Then we found
Aspect Computing
and it was in among the big waves, the real big waves where the top 30 feet was just breaking off and rolling like breakers you see surfboarders riding in Hawaii. They were sailing remarkably well. When we got to
Midnight Rambler
the wind was so hard it was blowing the surface off the water and into the air like smoke. It was an incredible sight.”

It was not long before Schwertner knew that the pursuit of pictures was “getting to the silly stage”. He had worked as Bennett’s pilot for many years and was similarly enthusiastic about getting the best possible results, but this time, with low visibility and an intense buffeting from the wind, it was time to “pull the plug”.

“We were all pretty depressed, even Ralph, because we felt we had been cheated out of getting some of the ultimate sailing shots,” said Bennett.

As Schwertner began preparing the Aero Commander for its final approach into Merimbula airport, AusSAR in Canberra alerted him to an EPIRB that had been activated on the race course. They were asked to investigate. Minutes later, after refuelling, the plane was back in the air and heading for the yacht
VC Offshore Stand Aside.
Richard and Alice Bennett were still in the back of the plane, but this time they were search and rescue observers aboard the first fixed-wing aircraft to enter the disaster area.

Radio communications were already proving problematic so the Aero Commander circled above
Stand Aside
at 1500 feet to relay information to helicopters and AusSAR. While they listened intently to the radio, the airwaves were pierced by another mayday. It was
Bilstex Ninety-Seven
, Graham Gibson’s 47-footer that had stunned the world by taking line honours in the harrowing 1993 race. It was disabled with a steering failure and a huge container ship had emerged out of the murk just 400 metres away – on a collision course. The container ship was approaching from the east after having been forced to turn into the enormous waves. It too had limited manoeuvrability. The crew on the yacht fired off a collision flare while Schwertner tried to make radio contact with the ship. Seconds later the ship’s crew advised that they had spotted the yacht. They altered course slightly and
Bilstex Ninety-Seven
got its reprieve by the narrowest of margins.

For the next four hours Bennett and his team remained as a communications post over the fleet, relaying to AusSAR in Canberra vital information on yachts in distress.

A
fter hovering as a sentinel for some considerable time over
VC Offshore Stand Aside
, the ABC helicopter was running low on fuel and would have to battle 65 to 70 knot headwinds to get back to Mallacoota. Gary Ticehurst had continually monitored his tanks, calculating how much he would need on the return journey. He also calculated a “worst case scenario” – how far it was to the coast should things go wrong. He could always land on a beach or headland somewhere if he had to, but that would put his machine out of action. It could take a day or more to get fuel to an isolated location, and there were plenty of them on the coast. He knew a limited supply of aviation fuel in drums was kept on Gabo Island so he telephoned them. He could not get an answer.

With an hour and 15 minutes worth of fuel left, Ticehurst made the decision that in five minutes he must leave
Stand Aside.
Just as that five minutes expired, another spine-chilling mayday penetrated his headset.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. Here is
Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill
!”

“
Winston Churchill
,
Winston Churchill
, ABC chopper, go ahead with your position. Over.”

“We are 20 miles south east of Twofold Bay. Over.”

“Nature of your mayday. Over.”

“Affirmative. We are getting the liferafts on deck. ABC chopper we are holed. We are taking water rapidly. We cannot get the motor started to start the pumps. Over.”

Ticehurst reassured the nine
Winston Churchill
crewmembers that their mayday was covered and that he would relay the message to
Young Endeavour
and to shore. Ticehurst was faced with a burdensome dilemma. He could not initiate his own search even though the yacht was probably within 10 miles of the chopper – perhaps five to 10 minutes away. All he could do was relay the mayday back to AusSAR and then make the slow return trip to Mallacoota to refuel.

The mayday and Ticehurst’s communications with
Winston Churchill
were also heard aboard
Young Endeavour.
The instant he had monitored the call, the ship’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Neil Galletly, ran the 15 paces to where Lew Carter and his team were located in the race communications centre and explained the situation. For a very brief moment Carter was stunned into silence. He felt sick in the stomach. He knew most of the blokes aboard
Winston Churchill
and had sailed with many of them over the years. Carter shook himself free of his thoughts. They were already dealing with emergency situations involving
Stand Aside
and
Miintinta
and they were about to be bombarded with countless more distress calls. His conviction was reinforced by the fact that a few minutes earlier he had been up on deck and was horrified by what he saw.

Galletly and Carter agreed that the gravity of the situation meant it was best they combined forces. Galletly would take over the plotting situation while Carter and his
team monitored the radios. The plot for
Winston Churchill
’s position had it only about 11 miles from
Young Endeavour.
At that stage the
Young Endeavour
team did not know it was a “Dead Reckoning” (DR) position – an assumed-position but given that the
Winston Churchill
crew was preparing to take to their liferafts it was a definite priority. Yachts were struggling to stay afloat in those conditions, it would be living hell being in a raft. Darkness was still around three hours away. The decision was made to proceed immediately to
Winston Churchill.

Despite the conditions there was an element of excitement building among the Navy crew and youthful sailors aboard
Young Endeavour.
The ship had executed an excellent rescue from an upturned yacht during the galeravaged 1993 race. They were hoping they could repeat that performance once more. Galletly was already developing a rescue plan. The scuba diver was briefed. It would be too dangerous to launch the ship’s large, diesel-powered, rigid-bottom inflated boat. Probably the best and safest procedure would be to inflate a liferaft, hold the ship directly to windward of the person or object, and let the raft drift down to them with the diver playing a pivotal role as a “direction control unit”.

While they were proceeding towards
Winston Churchill
, they received another report directing them to a different position. Even though they felt their original course was correct, they duly changed direction as instructed. At that stage they had the seas on their starboard side and they had to turn completely around to head back north again, gybing the ship with only the storm sails up for stability. The new course saw them sailing dead downwind in 40- to 50-foot waves. It was a very dangerous situation.

The captain alerted all watches. It was all hands on deck for the gybe. Everyone was wearing their wet
weather gear, life jacket and safety harness. After some 20 minutes, just as they were completing the gybe, a monster wave rumbled in out of nowhere and picked up the massive vessel as if it were a toy.
Young Endeavour
heeled over in a dramatic fashion – close to the point of capsize. Carter could only look on and cling to a safety rail in horror. Eventually, through good seamanship on Galletly’s part and the pendulum effect of the ship’s keel, it came upright. Chastened and shaken,
Young Endeavour
and its crew headed off to the new and considerably more distant location. Night was falling, the storm was worsening and visibility was down to 100 metres.

Winston Churchill
was a classic yacht of powerful proportions and had been restored to perfection by its owner, Richard Winning. Winning had assembled an experienced and well-balanced crew which included Bruce Gould, John “Steamer” Stanley and Jim Lawler. Gould’s impressive credentials included 32 Sydney to Hobarts; while Stanley had notched up 16. Like all the other yachts continuing in the race they were down to minimum sail by early afternoon on the 27th. At that stage clouds of spume were starting to burst from the tops of the waves as 50- to 55-knot winds whipped them into a frenzy. Occasionally the alarm on the wind instrument would activate – a signal that a wind gust had topped 60 knots.

Winning, Stanley and Gould were more than pleased with the way the “old girl” was handling the conditions. They could, however, only manage 30 minutes at a time on the helm. It was impossible to continue much longer than that because the rain and spray, propelled by the savage winds, ripped at the eyes and face. Gould was on the helm for half an hour in the early afternoon. They
were down to a storm jib and were doing about five knots, sailing at about 50 to 60 degrees to the face of the waves. They debated what the next step would be but ruled out going to Eden. Steamer had some reservations about whether or not it would be safe to heave-to.

At around 3.30pm Winning was on the helm with John Dean sitting nearby, seeking what shelter he could from the coach-house – a box-like cabin near the stern. Stanley was in his bunk in the aft coach-house while Gould was trying to sleep on the cabin sole of the main saloon – the most comfortable spot available despite the annoying leaks.
Winston Churchill
continued to power impressively through the big seas – 25 tonnes and five knots seemed a great combination. Stanley was considering their options. Bare-poling it was one, but that would have the yacht completely at the mercy of the seas.
Winston Churchill
was a long keel yacht designed to heave-to.

“We had a sea that just came out of nowhere,” said Stanley. “I could feel it from where I was in the aft coach-house. It just picked the boat up and then rolled it down its face – 25-tonne of boat – into the trough at a 45 degree angle. It was like hitting a brick wall when we got to the bottom.” Stanley was pinned to the windward side of the coach-house and the three windows were smashed. He heard the other crewmembers calling for help up on deck and he rushed up to find Winning and Dean hanging in the backstay rigging and around the boom with their feet about two feet off the deck. Stanley quickly untangled them and got them down.

John Gibson was rummaging around in the main saloon with full gear on, including his harness, looking for the trysail and tidying up some of the sails that had been taken down below when the wave hit. Every now and then he’d stick his head up out of the companionway to observe the conditions. Although there was the odd
bang, he didn’t feel the situation was out of control and he certainly wasn’t aware the lee rail was under. He was on the windward side of the saloon moving along when suddenly he was picked up and thrown about seven or eight feet across the saloon. He was upside down and had done a somersault, giving his head a nasty knock in the process. Within seconds he was covered in blood and gear which had fallen out of the lockers. He got up, saw some of the other crewmembers were stirring and then noticed that all the floorboards had been lifted up and thrown towards him. The boat was taking water from the bilge area, but the exact location was impossible to pin-point. The companionway ladder had been dislodged so he repositioned it and went up on deck.

Bruce Gould was also down below and had flown through the air, dislocating his thumb. He recalls vividly how he fixed it. “I said to Mike Bannister, who was in the lower leeward berth, ‘Here, grab hold of my thumb will you, and pull it hard’ and that’s exactly what he did. The thumb went immediately back in place. I then went straight to the deck. The boys were still dangling like puppets on a string. Steamer was trying to sort them out. There was no one on the helm so I grabbed the wheel. I could feel straight away that there was a lot of water in the boat. I stayed on the helm because the others knew the boat better than me. Steamer was going around trying to sort out the extent of the shit fight – on deck and below. He told Richard to try to start the motor so we could operate the bilge pumps.”

Winning turned the ignition key and the engine started. It ran for just five seconds and then spluttered to a halt. Gould was in no doubt the yacht was going to sink and suggested they send out a mayday. With the main radio out of action because of an influx of water, Winning went to his only source of communication – the short-range
VHF radio. It was vitally important to give an accurate position, but the water that had wrecked the HF radio had destroyed that chance. The monster wave had taken the yacht’s charts and GPS unit with it. Winning could only guess where they were – and give a DR position.

Stanley went forward to go down the companionway into the main cabin. As he did he saw there was six feet of the heavy timber bulwark amidships completely shattered. A large section of the bulwarks, about six to eight feet in the area of the leeward shrouds, had been carried away. The planking had been removed and the ribs were exposed. When Stanley got below he discovered there was already 15 inches of water over the floor. Debris was everywhere. Immediately he told the rest of the crew to get on deck and take the liferafts with them.

“We decided that we wouldn’t put the liferafts in the water until the deck was awash,” he recalls. “I had heard of people launching rafts too early and the boats going one way and the rafts going the other. Also, you should always step up into a liferaft – not down.” In the middle of all this Stanley added dryly, “Well fellas, this looks like the end of our Hobart.”

Bruce Gould told the guys to put on their life jackets and prepare to abandon ship. Then they took down the storm jib because all the rigging on the port side was slack. Gould wanted the headsail off because they had enough troubles already without the added hassle of the mast falling down. He pulled the boat away and sailed downwind. The sheets for the storm jib were flailing perilously around like lethal steel bars while Mike Bannister worked on lowering it. Regardless of the danger, the crew did not panic and continued to work tirelessly and methodically. Dean and Lawler prepared the raft on the leeward deck. The question was raised as to
whether the EPIRB had been activated and there was a reply to the affirmative. Gould steered the yacht dead downwind until the very end – some 20 minutes after impact.

“We were running in these huge seas with the wind over our quarter, getting lower and lower in the water,” he recalls. “Next thing a massive wave, 40 feet plus, came over us and swamped us. It filled the boat. I said to Richard, ‘Well mate, this is it. You’d better tell the boys we’re abandoning ship’.”

John Gibson followed Lawler into a raft and was one of the last to leave. “As the rafts were being launched I was just thinking to myself that I’d like to go in the same raft as Jimmy Lawler,” Gibson recalls. “That was my confidence in him and that’s exactly what I did. It just happened that there was a spot available anyway. I would have got into either raft but I just consciously felt very comfortable out there because I regarded Jim as my mate. We were from the same club and also John Stanley was in the same raft.”

Winston Churchill
was sinking quickly but the line securing the raft was still attached. There was a loud bang and the lanyard to the raft parted. Gould recalls being hit by another enormous wave before he left the helm. He ran forward and did a swan dive towards the open tent flap of the nearest raft and was dragged inside.

All nine crewmembers had managed to escape, and as they looked back from the relative security of the liferafts, the hull of the once mighty
Winston Churchill
sank gracefully below the surface.