2018 70th Brisbane to Gladstone

Awesome race, well done! Man that Pogo looks sweet.

At least they turned up at the Presentation!!!!!

HI all,
As an adjunct, some of the little side stories from the race after talking to some of the other boats;
One of the catamaran's Chillpill had a man overboard incident at 2am off Indian Head. He was wearing a PFD but wasn't tethered on. The seas were big enough for this to be a concern, it's hard to spot someone at night let alone in a decent sea state. They turned around and tracked back over their GPS course, 15 minutes later they heard him yelling in the darkness, located him and got him back onboard. Kudos to the Chillpill crew for keeping a level head and achieving a successful recovery, I wouldn't want to be swimming alone in the ocean off Fraser Island.

Kerisma had a partial MOB across the paddock. Charging under kite (they clocked a max speed of 29 knots) they broached, and the G-forces pulled one of the guys out of the back of the boat. A handful of tether and PFD from the skipper (who looks like he could one-hand a horse back on board) and they were off again. Talk about tough, hard charging competitors, they'd lost all their electronics, kites, the engine, and the gooseneck snapped on the gybe after they crossed the finish line.

Marriah, with Peter Holm skippering an amazing 47 x Gladstone's equalling his father Ivan's record, postponed racing to provide aid to Redjam who had lost her rudder. Redjam got into difficulty East of the northern tip of Fraser, at 10am at night, with a big Easterly swell and a lee shore. Marriah turned around and beat back upwind to affect a tow. In the process, the tow rope snapped, Marriah lost her engine and still managed to get Redjam under tow whilst under sail, then tow her 40 odd miles around Breaksea Spit into calmer waters till the water police could get to them the next afternoon.
A well deserved special mention was made at the presentation to the entire Marriah crew for a pretty amazing feat of seamanship. Poor old Blair on Redjam finally made it to Urangan early Sunday morning, a long tow for the little Young 88.

Another catamaran Rushour lost both rudders. They managed to steer using engines and allegedly a drogue to make it into Gladstone, whilst another cat lost one rudder also.
Envy , one of the two TP52's had the entire bowsprit part ways with the boat due to failure of the bobstay. I shudder to think what that would have been like at the time, the loads on those things are pretty enormous. Just goes to show things can go wrong on any boat, Envy is the old IchiBan, so its not like it was a virgin boat.

The rest of the damage, aside from us, seemed to be sails mostly, we had a good view of some of them! A lighter moment; one of the well prepped race boats called for a brand new heavy air 1.5 ounce kite to go up. The kite goes up and doesn't even last 30 seconds before disappearing into, and I quote, "a cloud of confetti". Turned out some poor sod had inadvertently packed a much lighter (brand new) half ounce kite in the clearly labelled 1.5 ounce kite bag. Oops!
One thing I found surprising, quite a few of the slower boats found the conditions too much, and seemed reluctant to go again next year. It wasn't the winds, it was the sea state that caused the most concern. I find that a little bit surprising, the swells were no bigger than 3mtrs with a fairly long duration but the Easterly direction meant it was mostly on the beam, and this seemed to create an unpleasant trip for some, seasickness and fatigue making a bit of an impression.

I am now well and truly into the repair mode. Aside from the boom, our total damage bill was pretty good, a bent stanchion, another snapped dyneema casing on the outhaul, and a new mainsheet after having to cut it to affect repairs, and a priority, two screw on plastic covers for the rudder posts in the cockpit floor. After the first night, we had easily taken on board a few hundred kilos in water into the lazerette, as the water runs down the side decks before emptying into the back of the cockpit, right onto the rudder post covers. They'd both been broken previously, and being French the sizing is a bit odd and not easily found in Aus, (surprising, as they are Plastimo covers which are readily available). We also had to bail out a few hundred kilos from inside the boat too, this was through sloppy practices in closing the hatch, so all up we were dragging a extra half ton of weight we didn't need as we're trying to catch Dekadence on the way to Lady Elliot. We have a 12mtr long vacuum hose on the electric bilge pump which worked an absolute treat, clambering through the boat with a hose is much easier than bailing with a bucket and sponge.

So, in summary, the conditions were strong enough to cause MOB 's and enough damage to keep the shipwrights and sail-makers happy for a few months, but were not extreme. I think we may have had wind gusts just over 30 knots, but on average it was mostly sub 20 kn until Lady Elliot, with a pretty consistent 20 knots plus on the run across the paddock. So please pay attention to your MOB and safety drills if you''re heading offshore, because of training and good seamanship some real potential issues became mere interesting stories at the bar rather than front page news. It was also interesting that the MOB incident s were very experienced crew, I've added a mental note to my pre-race prep, watch for complacency, even the experienced crew can get into trouble,
We're racing in a couple of weeks, so I'm off down the boat to try and work out a 2:1 setup for the temporary mainsheet. It's bloody hard work at 1:1 in any pressure, so back to the chandlery for more shiny bits!
Cheers,
SB

Good work Shags. Very informative, especially to armchair racers like me. Good luck in your upcoming race.

Well done Shaggy great post