Quentin Tuxen is a man whose 'office' is one of the most notorious stretches of water in the world: the Bass Strait. A veteran of 15 Sydney Hobart races as well as numerous other blue water events, for the last quarter of a century Tuxen has been making a living delivering boats. Seven years ago he moved down to the beautiful, rather sleepy township of Kettering in Southern Tasmania and since then '90% of our work is bringing boats across the Bass Strait.'

Like many boating professionals, Tuxen usually only gets on a boat if he's paid to do so. But he makes an exception for his own boat, a glorious old Huon Pine Channel Boat rather optimistically, given Tasmania's notorious climate, named 'Sunbeam'. At 90 years of age she's one of the proud old ladies that regularly attend Hobart's bi-annual wooden boat festival.

A couple of months ago Tuxen was asked to deliver a Mainship Pilot 34 to a boat brokerage near his home in Kettering. After their successful showing at Sanctuary Cove Boat Show, Mainship's head office was inundated with enquiries and their Tasmanian agent, Steve Taylor, had decided that the 34 footer would be perfect for southern conditions (where the tourism slogan should read 'Tasmania: perfect one day, constant squalls the next'). It was just a matter of getting the boat from Mainship's home on Lake Macquarie, NSW to his business at Oyster Cove Marina.

Tuxen had just finished a northern crossing with a fishing boat so he was available to take the 34 foot Mainship south. Unfortunately just before he and his crew were due to depart the weather turned foul and Tuxen found himself stuck in Lake Macquarie; conditions were so atrocious that they couldn't get out over the narrow shoal bar at Swansea; 'it was similar to the conditions they had when the Pasha Bulker ran up.' Tuxen and the crew spent about a week getting to know the small lakeside town of Toronto and drinking endless cups of coffee at the local marina.

Finally they got underway and completed their first leg to Eden, where they planned to refuel for the Bass Strait crossing, in 24 hours. Again the weather was against them and although they arrived on a clear bright winter's day, the following morning dawned grey and squally and they found themselves stuck in Eden for the next five days.

Like many jobs, boat delivering isn't as glamorous as a high school careers counsellor or a Centrelink job placement officer may lead you to believe. Tuxen doesn't get paid for sitting around in marinas while the weather rages, but being a sensible person neither does he want to risk taking his client's luxury boats out in filthy conditions; the boats need to arrive in pristine condition and he also wants to get home in one piece.

He left as soon as the weather started to clear: 'there was still a fair bit of swell on- but it was backing off which is why we left.' Just offshore from the Victorian/NSW border, the area around Gabo Island is notorious for shipwrecks and severe weather and this is where Tuxen ran into some unpleasant seas.

'It was a decaying swell so it was probably 2-3m seas by the time we got out there but it gets quite confused in that area. It's not necessarily coming from straight on- it can come from quite a few different angles at times and that unsettles quite a few different designs of boats.'

'Particularly down around the Gabo area where you get the swell opposed by currents, mixed currents, and it gets quite sloppy. And the boat handled it very well. She didn't pitch around, she felt solid in the water, and still maintained good speed without banging. So we were quite pleased with how she handled and performed over that stretch.'

After this area of confused seas, conditions settled down and the Mainship maintained her speed of 10/12 knots down Tasmania's East Coast, with the crew stopping at Bryan's corner to eat and sleep. They came down the back of Maria Island, though the Narrows and into Dennison Canal, finally arriving at their destination in picturesque Oyster Cove.

'When we got to Kettering it was a beautiful sunny day but the following day it cracked up again, so if we hadn't go through in that little window that we had we would have probably sitting on some anchorage half way up the east coast of Tassie waiting to get down here.'

Tuxen said that he was impressed both by the boat's looks and her fuel economy:

'I was impressed with the way it was appointed, it was certainly very comfortable. Everything seemed solid and worked well and had fairly user friendly design. She had a useable amount of power but she wasn't a big petrol guzzler.'

About the same time he was bringing the Mainship south, one of his friends was doing the same crossing in a similar length powerboat built by a well known manufacturer and 'he had to put into St Helens (East Coast Tasmania) to fuel whereas we had a greater range.'

Tuxen will no doubt be back on the high seas before too long, setting out on yet another Bass Strait crossing, and it's to be hoped that he will be doing so in a vessel with the comfort, reliability and handling of a Mainship.


quentintuxen@bigpond.com

by Jardine Media

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