An Account of a journey by PCSC Boats to the Wooden Boat Festival 2019
Andy Bullock
Racing is the activity that gets most of the attention at the club, but every second year a contingent of PCSC boats represents our club at a different sort of nautical gathering: the biannual Australian Wooden Boat Festival. The festival is now a major event on the Tasmanian cultural calendar, and a feast for anyone who appreciates the beauty and craftsmanship of wooden boats, old and new. In 2019, the following boats from PCSC sailed in company to the AWBF: Hinemoa, Colin Grazules’ immaculately kept 36ft sloop; Prudence, Alex Jerrim’s 22ft clinker teak, double -ended gaff-rigged half-decker, being skippered by Bruce Harris with Michael Minchin; my own 23ft gaff sloop Leda; and the baby of the group, 14ft Henry, also owned by Alex, and being sailed by him and Cam from Sydney. Ed and Jill’s mighty 54ft Maya, although not a participant in the festival itself, was acting as unofficial mothership for the little fleet on the passage to Hobart and back. Jeremy Clowes’ couta boat Rose, and the recently launched mini couta boat Jeremy built, also represented the club but sailed to Hobart separately. Keith and Margie’s staunch William Atkins designed Tawhiri had been accepted into the festival and set off, but unfortunately suffered engine problems and turned back. Alistair’s magnificent schooner Giselle 2 also sailed from Port Cygnet.
This was the first time I had a boat in the Wooden Boat festival, although Leda had participated before (as Leofleda), with her previous owner, John Young. However Leda had been given a makeover, the mission brown bulwarks and cabin sides being repainted ‘Botany blue’ and cream respectively. But I had only just managed to get Leda ready in time to sail to Hobart. Several weeks earlier I had pulled out the mast, in order to replace the rusty rigging and strip and re-oil the spars. But the summer’s fires had caused Brierley Marine to delay my rigging job in favour of making up fire hoses, so it was only the day before our departure date that the newly rigged mast was carried down the club pontoon. With the much appreciated assistance of club members in the vicinity it was hauled aloft using temporary timber legs, the mast heel dropped through the deck, and the new stays attached. Jim, my mate from the Clarence River, who had brought his recently launched clinker Viking boat down to the WBF from northern NSW, was to sail with me aboard Leda to Hobart.
The forecast was for light, variable winds and we proceeded down Port Cygnet under motor. However once out into the Huon estuary a surprise westerly sprung up, which freshened considerably as we entered the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. With the wind dead astern, and seeking to avoid a gybe (the Archilles heel of gaff-rigged yachts with running backstays), Leda passed closer than I wished to the reef extending out from Ninepin Point near Verona Sands. I looked forward to rounding Three Hut Point near Gordon, beyond which we should have the shelter of the land to windward.
However, to my chagrin, once we passed Gordon rather than gaining shelter from the wind, we became subject to vicious blasts gusting down from the high land to our west. One onslaught heeled Leda alarmingly and pinned her on her beam ends. Yelling to Jim to release the mainsheet, I leapt forward and doused the number two headsail, then took a second reef in the mainsail. Maya and Hinemoa were well ahead but also reeling to the gusts, while looking astern to see how Prudence and Henry were fairing, I could just make out the latter’s tiny, dark tan sails in the distance behind. These were challenging conditions for a 14ft dinghy, although Henry had previously completed some impressive coastal voyages.
One by one, the Cygnet contingent gratefully reached the shelter of Barnes Bay; the chosen overnight anchorage was Sykes Bay. That night the Cygnet sailors gathered within Maya’s hospitable cabin and swapped stories of the day’s events, while Colin demonstrated his culinary skills in the galley. Where I had cursed having to deal with running backstays when gybing, Bruce reported that the alternative arrangement, locating the sidestays aft of a position athwart the mast, had the drawback that when the mainsheet was eased off in the strong gusts the boom would bear against the stays preventing it from going out any further. The crew of Henry had to play the gaff halyard, in addition to the boom, in the gusts. We toasted the completion of the first stage of the biannual migration to the AWBF.
The morning forecast was for more moderate to fresh west to north-westerly winds. The day became a memorable one. We were sailing fast with the wind abeam as we crossed the mouth of North-west Bay, and numerous other sails, white, cream, and tan, appeared, on converging courses. One set of sails flogged in the wind and we could make out the Living Boat Trust whaleboat Capricornia, awash after a capsize, in the distance to windward of us; the LBT ‘raid’ participants had been camping further inside Northwest Bay. The ever gathering fleet left the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and entered the mouth of the Derwent River estuary, where a surge from nearby Storm Bay could be felt. As we sailed on, more and more boats, large and small, appeared, some taking an inshore course close to the cliffs north of Kingston, while others were to seaward of us, but all were sailing fast, in the steadily freshening wind, towards Hobart. There were many gaff sails among the fleet, while the larger ‘tall ships’ looked magnificent. It felt wonderful to be part of such a stirring spectacle. I lost sight of the other Cygnet boats, but Maya came up from astern and passed close by us to leeward, sailing fast. We exchanged greetings before she bore away to the east.
The plan was for the fleet to gather in the vicinity of Hanlon Light, and then sail to the festival docks en masse. Unfortunately, the wind swung further to the north, so that it blew straight down the Derwent, and strengthened further, raising a steep, nasty chop. The more powerful vessels slugged into it, close hauled under sail, or under power. But Leda became over-canvassed and pitched unhappily into the steep mid-river waves. We decided on discretion over purity, so stowed our sails and motored towards, then along, the shoreline, where the water was flatter. Even then I had the engine going at near maximum revs to make way into the teeth of the now savage wind. Finally Constitution dock neared, with several historic Sydney Harbour 18-footers out braving the wind. Jim spotted his wife Jenni waving among the crowd on the wharf. We circled around, enjoying the ambience of all the activity, until the lifting bridge allowing entrance to the famous dock swung up and it was our turn to enter.
