The Long Day to Phillip Island

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November 2019

The morning we left Apollo bay was a little hectic and had we realised what lay in wait just beyond the breakwater we probably would have gone back to bed. The forecasted wind strength was 15-20kts with gusts up to of 25kts, pleasant conditions by most sailors standards. What we got however was a wind that steadily increased from the moment we left the breakwater until it was far greater then anything the forecast had predicted, luckily though the seas were relatively flat.

We left Apollo Bay just as the sun was rising and at first it didn’t seem so bad but that quickly changed. We set out with the staysail and second reefed main and as the wind got stronger we put in the third reef. However it was once that third reef was in and we were still over powered that we realised how fast things were escalating. This was the strongest winds we’d had Allagai in, so it’s a sail I’ll never forget. We don’t have a wind instrument on board but we both agree based on past experience that the sustained winds were upwards of 40kts and the gusts were well into the 60kts range. So by this point the wind was absolutely howling and causing the solar panel on the dodger to vibrate so hard I had to hold it in place to stop it from damaging itself.

Hugo had been hand steering since we’d left Apollo Bay and every time a gust hit us he brought her up into the wind to de-power the sails preventing us from heeling more then we already were. There was only one problem with this tactic we were still within the bay and the wind was coming straight off the land. Therefore with every gust we were getting closer to the beach, I could see the headline in my mind “yacht washes up on beach due to a strong headwind pulling them in??”. Luckily that scenario never happened. We had made about 6nm offshore before the wind had gotten really strong and between the gusts could still make a little ground away. Eventually though the wind increased so much that we had no choice but to also reef the staysail if we wanted to keep this ground. I’d like to point out that this was the first time we’d ever reefed the staysail and so a good indication of just how windy it was. First I went up and tried to put the reef in but the wind was just to strong and I couldn’t get it to come down. So switching spots with Hugo I took over the wrestling match with the tiller while he went up to do the job. But even Hugo had trouble and only just managed to get the sail down leaving the reef ties loose so he could get back to the tiller, as due to my small size steering in those conditions really wasn’t my strong suit. Once Hugo took back the tiller I made my way to the bow to finish the job and tie in the reef points he’d left loose. But this wasn’t an easy task, the excess sail was flogging so hard it was difficult to hold onto while each gust sent us heeling so much the vertical surfaces became the new horizontals and on top of all that water kept splashing over the bow. All of this was unusual for Allagia as normally she is a dry boat and doesn’t heel further then 20-25 degrees but some of those gusts heeled us well beyond that especially with portholes were regularly going under water. However despite the difficulties I came back to the cockpit high on adrenaline and also soaked through, wondering how much longer this crazy wind could persist. It was finally after nearly two hours our prayers were answered with less then a mile left to the cliff faced shore. The wind had finally shifted and abated just enough that we could stop rounding up with each gust, allowing us to put some much needed distance between us and the looming rocks. I would like to add that even though this was an intense experience and a wild ride at no point did we ever feel unsafe or like Allagai couldn’t handle what we were putting her through. We had all our safety gear on, life jackets with harnesses equipt with personal EPIRBs and we were always clipped to the lifelines, and at no point did we feel we were in a knock-down situation. The only worry throughout this experience for us was the approaching land and only because every gust pushed us closer and we were struggling to bear away. But had it got much worse we would have dropped all sail and ran down wind under bar poles or just hoved-to until it passed. We were lucky throughout that even though the wind strength was high that the sea-state was relatively flat because the wind was off the land and opposite to the swell so we only had quite small wind chop to deal with.

Once our wild morning was over everything quickly calmed down, at least it sort of did. The wind dropped right out and we only had 10kts or less for the rest of the day. The only problem with this was now we had to contend with the residual sea state and to make matters worse the wind direction did a 180 making the seas even more confused. We were now also officially in Bass Strait, so no more Southern Ocean swell but this meant the sea state was totally dependent on the winds speed and direction and no longer quite so predictable. But we weren’t completely complaining the wind did give us quite a nice sail keeping our speed at the required 3-4kts it just wasn’t a very comfortable sail. We were aiming for a spot on the eastern side of Phillip Island called Cleeland Bight, which was about 80 miles away. With this distance in mind we knew we were in for another overnight sail so again we set watches, although this time I took the 8-12 and Hugo got the 12-4. This was because by our calculations we were due to get to the anchorage sometime just after midnight. As usual our calculations were correct and about two hours after going to bed I was back up because we were entering the channel, known as Eastern Entrance. That night it was a new moon (or very close to) and cloudy so coming in we had zero light. So we had to make our way into the anchorage using mostly the radar and also Navionics to stay within the channel and still we got one surprise. The shipping regulations state that all boats at anchor must display an anchor light however this rule doesn’t apple to boats on a mooring. We had just made it into the anchorage area and had thought we were alone when we’d decided to do a lap. We were checking the surrounding area for depth and moorings so we knew we had swinging room when suddenly out of the darkness another yacht appeared in our torch beam. This yacht however had no light as it was on a mooring and so not required to have one and on this pitch black night they blended in completely with the background. Luckily we saw them with about 50m to spare and were able to manoeuvre away and anchor nearby.

Our stay on Phillip Island was just a short stop over of one night and I was going to do my best to make the most of it. Once anchored we’d gone to bed but by about 8 the light was shining through the portholes and I was ready to do some exploring. Outside it was a hot 30 degree day with barely a cloud to be seen. I’d done some research and found we could walk a lap around the nearby peninsula and out to Cape Woolami. So with about four hours of sleep each we set off on this walk, which I forgot to mention to Hugo was about 10km long. But it was well worth it, the walk took us along the cliffs and gave us fantastic views looking down to the nearby towns and beaches. But once back on the boat we both just collapsed feeling the lack of sleep from the night before and tomorrow was going to be another long day and early morning. This anchorage was to be our last taste of civilisation, at least until we made it to Tasmania, our next destination the somewhat remote Warratah Bay.

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