Friday, December 29th, 2006. Bass Strait.
Tonight, most of the 69 yachts had completed the course in The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2006. The race started on December 26th, from the waters of Sydney Harbour, through the Tasman Sea, Storm Bay and the Derwent River. Finishing it earns instant respect in the sailing word. It does not matter wether the yachtsmen tried to win it or simply to sail through 628 miles of hell and high water to reach Hobart.
The conditions in Bass Strait are among the fiercest in the world. A safe run south to Tasmania is seldom possible. The big temperature difference between a large, hot, arid continent and Tasmania, out in the freezing wastes of the Southern Ocean, are just what a weather system needs to whip itself up into a frenzy. Quite often yachts will find a storm in their way, daring them to pass. This weather, mixed with the strong East Australian Current and some shallow waters, have Bass Strait considered as perhaps the roughest stretch of water in the world.
Racing yachts of 60 foot are dumped on their side, and yachtsmen either rolled out of their bunks, flung across the cabins, or soaked through and almost washed off of the decks, only to be saved by harnesses. Gusts of wind exceeding 60 knots push the seas into a massive undulating 60 foot swells with no clear sense of direction. At one moment, ships are at the crest of the wave, looking over the tops of the others lapping at the sky, visibility hindered by the dense gray sheet of falling rain and clouds. The next moment gazes absorb tremendous 60 foot drop as the boats nudge over the waves crest and plummet into gaping troughs of intense blue-gray water below them. Often, the hands of the crew clench the safety-line as they surfed down the back side of the wave reaching speeds of 28 knots on just a storm jib.
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland. The first European to discover it was Matthew Flinders in 1798. Flinders named it after his ship’s doctor George Bass.
Approximately 240 km wide at its narrowest point and generally around 50 metres deep, it was almost dry during the last ice age. It contains many islands, with King Island and Flinders Island home to substantial human settlements.
Like the rest of the waters surrounding Tasmania, and particularly because of its limited depth, it is notoriously rough, with many ships lost there during the 19th century. A lighthouse was erected on Deal Island in 1848 to assist ships in the eastern part of the Straits, but there were no guides to the western entrance until the Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse was completed in 1859, followed by another at Cape Wickham at the northern end of King Island in 1861.
Strong currents between the Antarctic-driven Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea provide a strait of powerful, wild storm waves. To illustrate its wild strength, Bass Strait is both twice as wide and twice as rough as the English Channel. The shipwrecks on the Tasmanian and Victorian coastlines number in the hundreds, although stronger metal ships and modern marine navigation have dropped the danger sharply. Many vessels, some quite large, have disappeared without trace, or left scant evidence of their passing. Despite myths and legends of piracy, wrecking and supernatural phenomena akin to those of the Bermuda Triangle, such disappearances can be invariably ascribed to treacherous combinations of wind and sea conditions, and the numerous semi-submerged rocks and reefs within the Straits.
Andrew Mculey has paddled three times across it. In 2003 he paddled across the Strait directly, 220 kilometres from Wilson’s Prom to Boat Harbour, near Wynyard. These are the first sentences of his report for the New South Wales Sea Kayak Club:
“Sea kayaks are incredible things. Their simplicity completely belies their amazing sea worthiness. No other sea-going vessel can be rolled through 360 degrees or pitch-poled end-over-end with no damage whatsoever. Some paddlers do this just for fun! A recreational kayaker can have a great paddle in weather that sends many yachts running for shelter. A well-built kayak is limited not by the modest dimensions of the craft, but by the imagination and skill of the person sitting in the cockpit.
To my eternal regret, I have a vivid imagination. After crossing the western side of Bass Strait in January 2003 I imagined that much more was possible. Although the 100km ocean crossing from King Island to Apollo Bay had felt pretty ‘out there’ and committing, I couldn’t help but think this was just the beginning of an exploration into what is possible in a kayak. I had paddled 100km in a day and not a drop of water leaked into the hatches. If you have faith in your boat, why not keep paddling? Night paddling had never bothered me too much, in fact I quite like it. However, I do like my sleep! I asked around and did a bit of research to find out whether anyone had successfully slept in an unmodified kayak at sea before. There was very little information available. After considerable thought, I felt that there were advantages to paddling right through the night rather than trying to sleep. For one, you wouldn’t be kidding yourself that you’d get a decent bit of kip when it was pretty clear that this was unlikely. Also, by continuing to paddle you are likely to stay warmer with the body heat generated by paddling. You will also get off the water quicker. This is important because the longer you are out there on the water, the more exposed you are to changes in the weather, adverse currents, and the movement of your kayak on the ocean, which can be tiring after 24 hours or so.”
On April 1st, 2007, a very brave Justine Curvengen will attempt the crossing.
[Ignacio Wenley Palacios]
in Expedition
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