Storms at sea in small boats – real life stories

Once the seas dropped to about 1m again about 30km off Dundee we pulled up to put some more fuel in the boat and had another fish. Only a few small sharks. We then headed back in closer to Dundee and got onto some blue salmon to finish the day. While in close fishing I had a call from a mate in Darwin asking if we were OK as he saw an article that a boat had to be rescued by the Care Flight chopper when they were only 30km off Dundee and lost their navigation.

The next morning I could barely walk being battered and bruised all over and decided to crawl back into bed for the day.

It ended up being the biggest storm of the season.

My family had organised to all fly up to darwin to spend Christmas together, the first time we 5 kids had all been in the same place since 2015 let alone meeting all the new nieces, nephews and better halves. We’ve always been a fishing family since I can remember. Growing up in central Queensland saw us 4 boys out every weekend rail, hail or shine fishing and spearing for the greater part of 20 years.

So 23rd December 2019, 6 of us (me, my brothers John, Jared and Patrick, my father in law Tony and a good mate Dave) set off from Dundee beach, at 2 am in Tonys 26ft southwind center console with a 225 suzuki pushing us along. The plan was to head 50nm out to our red marks and work our way back in fishing and diving before getting out about 2pm to beat the dropping tide.

The forecast looked good, claiming a max of 7 knots for the day and it was an uneventful 2 hr drive to the ramp which is always a blessing. Upon launching and heading through the leads we noticed several small distant patches of lightning on the horizon so we pulled up and checked the radar. Everything looked good and the small scuds seemed to be all moving away from us or well to the south. There was one storm inland and north but heading west and as they usually break up before they hit the coast we didn’t pay too much attention to it and the throttle went down again. It was a great run sitting on 26 knots with small ground swell giving the odd bump. Everyone was either asleep or too excited and the banter was flowing well. As the sky started to lighten up we stopped for a piss and noticed the storm that was north of us seemed to be closing the gap. Still not much was said about it although the subject turned to waterspouts, boats being lost at sea and struck by lightning. As the sky grew light enough to see there was some good lightning from the storms further out and to the south of us but they didn’t pose any threat and we were enjoying the show. By this time we could see the front of the large northern storm which had reached the coast and showed no signs of breaking up. By this time we were too far out to get any phone signal to check the radar to see the size of the front, but all agreed it was only going to last 20-30 min of rain. Dave laughed because he was the only one who’d packed a rain jacket and we continued on our trip.

About 6am suddenly tuna started busting up in football sized areas all around us so we took advantage and threw some slugs netting us 3 good size mac tuna as fresh bait. As we got them in the kill bin we heard a rumble of thunder and looked up to see a black wall of clouds and rain stretching roughly 100km!

We figured we couldn’t outrun it so we may as well head for the lightest looking bit of the front still not
realizing what we were in for or how fast it was travelling. We then spotted the waterspout poking out of the
leading edge and although it was several kilometers away to the south it was thicker than a thumb. We made ready as best we could although we left the lifejackets in the nose which would prove to be a near fatal mistake for us all. The first bit of wind got to us at 6.30am and it wasn’t too bad about 30 knots. We were laughing and joking that it would all be over soon and I pulled out the gopro thinking this will be a laugh.

Not so.

The clouds dropped and started spinning 200m off our port. Tony turned outrun the forming waterspout, just as the wind that was ripping the tops off the waves hit us. Everything was screaming wind and mist. The front looked like a fog bank and when it hit us side on it all went wrong. The wind grabbed the tee top and pushed us over so far we started taking water over the side and pushing the boat sideways through the water. Everyone was yelling to Tony to get the boat straight while hanging on for dear life. He then told Jared and John to take the wheel. Jared turned full lock and John slammed the throttle down. After what seemed like forever we turned straight into the wind which was well over 50knts! This lasted about 5 minutes during which time the waves built up over 3m in height with less than a boat length between them. 2 out of 3 waves were coming aboard over the nose and being at the back i saw the entire outboard disappear underwater numerous times. With Jared on the wheel, John on the throttle and the rest of us hanging on white knuckled I yelled; “hit that bilge there’s a lot of water building up back here”, they hit the button and nothing. So I opened the rear hatch and saw the entire hull was full to the brim. I then spent the next hour and a half inside the bilge clearing leaves and bits and pieces out of the bilge to keep it operational and us afloat. Every wave that looked like it was coming over us the boys would yell a warning to me and I would brace on whatever i could and hold my breath until the scuppers had done their bit.

At nearly 9am the rain finally stopped and we found ourselves a few short miles off Point Jenny. Being that it was too rough to head back out and chase reds we settled for protected waters and a few jewies. To say the least there have been some changes to the boat since (larger bilge pumps, lifejackets and epirb relocated to the center console) and will never underestimate a wet season storm again.

This story is about a day that was no-contest the worst day I’ve had on the water, ever. It all started about 15
years ago when my mate Troy had just bought a 2nd hand Yalta 189 fibreglass boat and invited me to take part on the maiden voyage trip to the reef.

When I arrived the day before to help load the fuel/bait/ice etc, he said he had just bought a new VHF radio and antenna to replace the old one, as it looked pretty dodgy and he didn’t trust it. I commented that I was surprised how small the antennas were these days, as it was only about 300mm long. Troy told me that he also asked about that but the guy at the shop told him “that’s what all the reef boats are using these days, it’s just the technology has got better”. Ah well, that was good enough for me. We filled up the underfloor tank which held plenty of fuel for a day trip, but we filled an extra 20L drum “just in case” as we weren’t sure of the fuel economy of the new motor.

We checked the weather forecast on Seabreeze, cross checked with BOM and wherever else and they all said calm sea conditions until there was a strong Southerly change coming through around Sunday evening. We were planning to be home around lunch on Saturday, well before that change came through so the trip was locked in and we were good to go….

It was still dark well before sunrise on the Saturday, when I met Troy, his dad Rob, and another mate Todd as we put the boat into the water at the Ocean Creek ramp. We were all excited during the quick trip to the mouth, especially as we were greeted with beautiful calm seas. We set course for the reef and made quick time as we got to the reef in about an hour and a half and straight into the fish. As soon as VMR began operating, we did the right thing and called in to register our trip details, and destination etc. The lines went down again and the fish were on the chew, and we got a good haul of trout, red throat, a couple of nice emperor, and even a good size Spanish on the floater out the back. It was an absolute belter of a morning, we had about 20 nice fish and the weather was spectacular. “Doesn’t get any better than this!” was the common saying aboard.

It got to around lunch time and we decided we’d caught enough and had a good day, so it was time to go. We began cleaning up the boat and thought we’d better have a beer to toast the great day, and the new boat as we were wrapped how it performed and couldn’t have hoped for a better maiden voyage. As we were sitting back sipping on a few beers feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, we noticed a gentle cool breeze started from nowhere and quickly picked up enough to spin the boat around about 180 degrees on the anchor. We all looked at each other and all knew what each other was thinking. “Uh oh, surely this isn’t that bloody weather change already…”

Sure enough, by the time we’d pulled the anchor up to start heading back in the seas had changed from flat shiny oil to a nasty chop. We pointed the nose for home and started heading straight into much worse conditions that on the way out. The sea was going to make the trip home uncomfortable, and we soon knew the 40 mile trip home was going to take much longer than coming out, that’s for sure. As we kept going the waves kept growing bigger, and bigger, with Troy having to gun the outboard just to get up the face of the waves, then quickly back off the power as we fell down and slammed over the back. We’d all seen plenty of white caps before, but I still remember the feeling of unease when we noticed a lot of waves were actually starting to curl over greeny blue, just like the surf waves down south.

“Shit, we’re in a bit of trouble here.” We tried calling in to VMR to let them know of our predicament, but got no response. We tried again and again, but got nothing. “This isn’t good.”

We’d travelled for over an hour, rarely at planning speed for a distance of about 10 miles. We tried contacting VMR again but got no response again. For the first time in my life, we all had lifejackets out and ready, but nobody actually put one on for some reason. Maybe nobody wanted to be the first to put one on and admit the seriousness of the situation, but I’m sure we all thought the time may come that we’d need them. From such a fun trip where we all were having a ball laughing and hanging shit on each other, there wasn’t much being said now.

I think we were about half way home after about 2 hours of up and down each wave as high as the canopy, when we actually heard something on the VHF. VMR were actually calling us! We were overdue on our registered arrival time, so they were seeing how we were. We found out later that they were overrun with distress calls and checking on people as the weather change had come through so far in advance that something like 20 boats had called in distress between Bowen and Townsville that day. We called back to let them know we were travelling, slowly, but making our way in. We heard them calling something like “Mackie, Mackie, Mackie, this is VMR Burdekin, are you on channel?”. We tried again to let them know our predicament but they couldn’t hear us. “Not such a great aerial that bloke sold you Troy” was mentioned in not so polite terms.

We pushed on and noticed that we had already used way more fuel than expected and were only about half way home. We had a quick discussion and if we kept the nose pointed forward we were travelling ok, but if we ran out of fuel with the waves this big we would surely get turned side on, and most likely tipped over and end up in the water with about 20 bleeding reef fish as burley around us. It shows how serious the occasion was when the decision was made to dump the fish over the side. This would serve two purposes, significantly lighten the load by dumping the fish, ice, food etc to help save fuel, and also get rid of the potential shark attractant is we did end up getting capsized and end up in the water.

In all my life I had never realistically contemplated how bad this could get, but the shit was getting real at
this point. We opened the esky lid and threw back all of the fish we’d caught. Beautiful reef fish, trout, red
emperor, and red throat lippers all going back in the opposite direction of which they came. I can’t stress
strongly enough for anyone to think just how desperate the situation is to be forced to lighten the load to avoid being capsized 20 miles out to sea.

Whenever we have been together and told this story, the most common reaction is “I can’t believe you actually threw the fish out”. F*&! the fish, I’d do it again tomorrow if I needed to. I’d rather buy fish and chips the rest of my life than to have myself and my mates end up floating in the sea out there in those conditions.
Especially with the numbers of bloody sharks that give us a flogging every trip. That’s how serious it was. I
don’t know about the other guys as I never actually asked about it, but I covered all the bases by even sending a quick silent prayer. Anyway back to the story….

One of Troy’s neighbours knew we were out at sea, and had alerted his mum to the to the change in weather and asked if we were still out there? They had pulled the neighbours boat out into the yard to try and contact us to see how we were. As they were listening they could hear VMR calling us without response. With all the other distress calls going on, and no reply from us, they certainly started fearing the worst. Jo rang our families to let them know what was going on.

We kept nudging towards home, one big wave at a time, still trying to communicate to VMR when a crackly
transmission came though saying something about “if they haven’t heard from us in half an hour, they would be launching a rescue”. We certainly didn’t want anyone else heading out into this mess risking themselves to look for us. We were wet, uncomfortable, scared, but not needing rescue at this point. We tried telling the m but they still couldn’t hear us. We assumed that the waves were so tall that they were blocking the transmission to and from the little bloody radio antenna.

We eventually got to the point where we were very low on fuel, as we’d used so much fuel getting up and down the waves without planning properly. Lucky we brought that extra jerry can after all. Actually getting it into the main tank was not going to be fun in this huge swell. Lucky the cap for the tank was up in the cab so two of stucked up in there and got ready. We were getting tossed around as we dropped over the waves, but lucky we had a jiggler hose to help get the fuel in. Todd and I wedged ourselves in the cab to steady ourselves and poured the fuel into the main tank as best we could. It was that rough that we couldn’t help but have a bit of spillage, but luckily most of the fuel went in.

We’d been going for about three and a half hours when we finally got through to VMR. They hadn’t yet sent the rescue, so we let them know that we were OK and still on our way home. We had travelled about thirty five nautical miles in just under four hours when the seas finally began to ease. For a normal trip even this sea would have been called too rough to go out in, however after what we’d just spent so long getting thrown around in, it seemed like just a rough chop. Thank Christ for that.

While it was still rough going, we knew we were through the worst of it and the sense of relief was clear to see. There had been silence and shared worried glances for so long, but there were smiles coming out again. I think there was some mention of the radio antenna and where the salesman was going to get it lodged when we got our hands on him.

We quickly ate up the final 5 mile or so and when we got inside the protected mouth of Ocean Creek it was like we’d just won the Lotto. We pulled up in the calm water and signed off with VMR. Just a short run up the creek left to go and the gauge was showing we had very little fuel left. Maybe tossing the fish and ice was the right call after all.

As we pulled up at the ramp we had a landing party greeting us. Troy’s mum, brother, brother’s girlfriend, Todd’s wife, his mum and dad. I looked around and nobody for me! Thanks a bloody lot! When we jumped out of the boat it was such a relief to touch land again, I even kissed the ramp! I quickly rang the wife and let her know we were home, and did ask why she wasn’t there with the rest of the crew.

“When Jo rang and said how serious it was, I rang your dad to ask him what to do. He said not to worry, you guys know what to do and as long as you take it slow you’ll be alright.” I’m glad dad was so confident, as I know the rest of us weren’t. A trip that took 1 ½ hours to the reef took just over 4 hours to get home, but I guess he was right as Troy and Rob stayed calm and drove to the conditions and we eventually made it home.

Needless to say we didn’t have any fish to eat that night, but we had a good story to tell over a few beers with
our mates. Oh, and next trip I went on with Troy, he had a new 6 foot long VHF aerial hanging attached to the boat canopy and it has worked flawlessly ever since!

Lessons learnt:

• Weather forecast isn’t an exact science and they don’t always get it right
• Buy a decent aerial for your marine radio and make sure it works
• Always check in with VMR so someone knows where you are or when to come looking if things get bad enough
• Take enough fuel so that you have enough “just in case”
• Pack a jiggler hose in your boat, as you don’t want to be pouring fuel into a funnel at sea, especially if
  it’s rough

In 1975 a group of us fishos (from Shortland Hotel Fishing Club) hired a charter boat to go off Swansea /
Newcastle for the day where tragedy occurred as per the attached Newspaper clipping.

After inquests into the tragedy and all was finished, 3 years later, through independent sources, it was revealed an under ocean earth quake over the ditch (NZ) was the cause. In the same quake, 9 people were lost to the ocean in 3 days up the east coast from Mallacoota (Vic) to Mackay (Qld).

Now I’m 67 years old and still love adventure. I previously purchased your Sounder Skills 1 and am looking forward to acquiring Sounder Skills 2.

Moreton bay is the location back in 2006. I had just bought a 28ft timber sharpie named Zetta II. She is a very
good sea boat, low centre of gravity and powered by an 80hp Perkins. I had left my harbour of Cabbage tree Creek and headed for Mud island on Boxing Day, not normally a bad time of year for storms or bad weather.

Day three of a 3 week holiday on the boat, we had spotted some weather on the horizon to the SSW over the Gold Coast hinterland. All VMR’s and Coast Guards had called the weather but then called it off during the day but we still kept an eye on it as we had northerlies of 10-15 knots. As a result, we had tucked up in tight to the coral in a nice depth of water and had the pots in chasing a nice feed of blue swimmers. We watched the front go to sea off the Gold Coast in a Northeasterly direction just on dusk. The northerlies picked up around dusk so in the anchorage, there were around 25-30 boats of all sizes 19ft to 60ft.

Then around 9pm, we had heard the VHF light up with all sorts of boats in trouble to the south of us. This had the Alarm bells ringing as we didn’t have an option of going around the other side of the island due to a stiff 25-30 knot northerly. Then the lightning and the rain had started so I decided to up anchor and move off the coral ledge and head out about 500 meters off the island.

Before we knew it the front and storm were on us. I had visitors onboard and they were in a 16ft Clark and I had set their boat on the large heavy weather tow rope and my tender behind that – all on the one rope. I had
approximately 150meters of anchor rope out plus 20 meters of 8mm chain and we were copping a southerly buster of 30-35knots from the south-east. Things were not going well with the tenders getting airborne and taking on water. The anchor rope was like a piano string and I had the main engine running to engage gears periodically as we would get 3 on the nose and on the fourth wave which was around 2-3 meters and breaking would hit us side-on.

One of my passenger we’re not well with one person very seasick, hanging on to a rear stay in a chair expelling over the side. She had slipped and fallen and broke her nose. This was just another level!

I was trying to keep the boat in control and nose into the waves. This went on for about 7 hours. Just on daybreak the 60 footer was a beam of me and as he was rolling around and pitching I could see his prop coming out of the water in the troughs.

By 0700 the next morning it had turned into a glass out and we sent the injured back to Brisbane for treatment and I carried on with my trip after a big clean up. All stores ended up either on the floor or down in the hatches.

Myself and a mate were anchored in the Norman River near Karumba fishing. Soon another boat came along and started fishing about a 100m from us. After a while another boat came along (the family I ended up saving).

As they arrived they accidentally ran over the other boats line and it wrapped around the prop. We sat there
watching and fishing for a while until I said to my mate “gee that boat looks like it’s taking on water.” We
watched for a couple more moments and sure as shit it was taking on water, and a lot of it, because old mate was down the back trying to untangle the line around his prop!!!

I quickly ripped in the lines and the anchor up and rushed to them. Once I got to see the amount of water in the boat I told them not to panic, the boat wouldn’t sink as it’s a center console quintrex and there full of foam under the floor. I said, “give me the little kid and mum so they are safe in my boat” and then we could help old mate.”

Once they were safe in my boat I got in the sinking boat and realized that someone had had the floor up and not screwed it back down because it was now floating, and to make it even better there was no foam under it either!!!!

To top this all off the owner had been doing some work to the boat and had taken the bilge pump out !!!!!!!!

Are you ready for the best bit ???? He also forgot to put one of the bungs in 

I was trying to keep him calm and explained to him if he drives the boat straight all the water will run out of
the bung hole. But he was panicking and kept turning the boat and swamped the motor. I quickly grabbed a rope and started towing him towards the nearest creek which was 6 mile and was half able to beach it.

With all this going on I noticed in the end we had an audience. About 3 other boats pulled up and watched us, not one bastard offered help saving this family! And I think they were watching to see which one of us was going to get taken by a croc first.

Luckily another mate came past and pulled up to give me a hand. After 2hrs we were able to tow him back to the boat ramp.

The very next day I made up a backup bilge pump to keep up the front of my boat as a spare in case I have to ever save another boat and family.

The story I would like to tell, sadly had a tragic ending for those involved and their family and friends.

I think it is important to tell this story so that others can learn by what happened to them.

If someone reads this and finds themselves in a similar situation, their loss, as tragic as it was, may save
someone’s life.

This is the story as I remember it.

In the mid-1980’s, my brother David and two of his friends decided to sail a large 3 mast yacht called the Ancient Mariner, from Brisbane to Cardwell NQ. After leaving Brisbane, they found themselves at the entrance to the Great Sandy Straits, Fraser Island. They decided to wait until the morning to cross the entrance, as it was late in the afternoon and conditions were not favourable for the entrance crossing. A decision was made to anchor up and wait till the morning. When they anchored up off the south end of Fraser Island, they decided to use a forward and rear anchor to hold the yacht in position. (This was a mistake.)

Sometime during the night, unbeknownst to them, the ocean swell increased, sending an extremely large set of waves crashing into the side of the yacht. Unable to turn into the swell due to the forward and rear anchors, the yacht was capsized and sinking. They made it out of the yacht but were unable to reach the life jackets, which were inside the yacht and underwater. (No Epirbs were available in the 1980’s). They managed to make it into the tender boat, but it too was capsized, leaving the three friends alone in the water, at sea, with no help. Sadly, only one person survived. He managed to make it to shore on Fraser Island, after a swim of some 15 to 20 hrs. He raised the alarm after flagging down a passing 4×4.

A long extensive search was undertaken, but unfortunately, no other survivors were ever found.

I think several factors certainly would have contributed to this tragic loss of life.

• It is not a safe practice to anchor in open waters with both front and rear anchors. The boat needs to be
  able to face bow into the waves, to avoid rolling over.
• Make sure your life jackets and EPIRBS are as accessible as they can be. You never know what could happen or
  when you may need them.

A memorial is now in place at the southern end of Cardwell beach for the beautiful young lady who was lost. And my
Brother David will always be missed.

Remember to be safe out there. And always have your safety gear sorted out, because at the end of the day if you
get into trouble, you only have yourself to rely on until help arrives after you’ve activated your EPIRB.

R.I.P David and Colleen.

(David Jones in photo)
(Colleen memorial)

Was a few years ago when myself and a mate went out for an overnighter off Dundee in the NT. It was October in the build-up and the big goldies were on fire. I have a 5.5m side console plate boat that I had just put a brand new 150 Yammy on.

As you do, I checked the weather report, perfect, loaded up and we were off to slay it. We motored about 40km down the coast and about 20km out. Night came, all was going well, few good fish and some nice eating fish in the esky when we noticed a kick-ass scud brewing up rover land and making its way out to sea. After a while we realised it was coming our way and closing in fast, the rain was dumping in this scud and the lightning was out of control.

Not wanting to be a part of it we pulled anchor and took off, but it was too late. I had the motor flat stick as
it was so calm and flat but the storm kept closing on us as we tried to outrun it, no matter which way we went we couldn’t dodge it.

In the end, we had to bunker down and ride it out and it was crazy.

My mate is shit scared of lightning which was smashing around us everywhere. He pulled the esky out of my cast deck and hid in there which pissed me off as a bit of moral support would have been nice. I decided to keep my motor running in idle and just keep an eye on the sounder, which I could hardly see through the rain. It was like being in a washing machine and we were taking waves over the side of the boat but from every angle.

Then my motor went dead, unknown to me the fuel tank breather took in enough water to get enough in the tank and kill the motor. The breather has since been modified but I swear if I did not have a sealed deck boat we would have sunk! A bilge would not of keeping up with the amount of rain and waves in the boat.

After about an hour the storm passed and I saw the cast deck lid start to open and my mates face poke out so I jumped on the lid as I was not happy with my mate.

Anyway, we tried to get the motor going but no go. We waited for the rest of the night out, had a bit of a sleep and thought we would see a boat in the morning. Morning came and nothing, nobody. So we left using the electric until the batteries went flat then anchored up.

I tried my 2 way but it wasn’t working. The week before, my mate’s kid was using the arial as a spear at home. I stopped him but didn’t realise it was damaged.

Man, it was hot, so hot, no sunscreen. As the day went on we still saw nobody and all we only had a carton of beer and a carton of Jacks, 3 litres of water and a packet of pretzels on board.

Around lunchtime we realised nobody was heading out our way, this could be serious and went into survival mode. We stopped drinking beer so we didn’t dehydrate, rationed the water and took turns with one of us sitting as a lookout with the other under the raincoats to keep the sun off.

The day passed, nobody, we were burnt, thirsty and hungry, we tried eating the pretzels then having a mouth full of water to fluff them up in our stomachs to fill us up but that didn’t work. Night came, we were getting really worried, starting to shit really and kept taking turns as lookout and sleeping.

Some time in the middle of the night my mate started going off, he thought he saw a boat. Ii got up and you
ripper, a boat. We had been dead in the water for around 30, 36 hrs now. We let the flares off but the lights on
the boat didn’t change course so we let off the old out of date flares which I keep as a backup.

The lights on the boat changed course and in about 10 minutes we had a commercial net boat sitting next to us. They didn’t see the first flares and said they only just noticed the second set because of the direction they were facing.

They gave us 2 options, wait and they would come back for us in a day or we could go fishing with them until their brine was full. We wanted off our boat so the skipper dropped his anchor and tied my boat to it as it was
obviously heaps bigger than mine. We collected our valuables, set some solar-type lifts to the boat which these guys had, pulled the batteries for the electric motor out, took a waypoint and jumped on board.

Once we were on board we used a sat phone to ring home, put my batteries on their charger and they let us have a shower, cooked us some tacos and gave us some fresh clothes and we went fishing with them.

They filled their brine that night, they said they were getting good karma for picking us up. In the morning we steamed back to my boat, sorted everything out and they towed us back to Dundee. When we got close enough to the ramp they sent us off using the electric motor to get to the ramp.

They were unloading later that day when they got back so we went home then went to the dock, helped them unload and laid massive amounts of top-shelf piss on them, they were champions.

I took my boat into the shop and ended up with a $14,000 repair { insurance } on a motor with 34hrs on it. The
saltwater had rusted the motor internals badly. I do have an EPIRB but wasn’t sure if the coast guard would have picked us up and left my boat behind which I wasn’t prepared to do.

I always carry an excess of water nowadays.

Bit of a long-winded story but a lot happened in those couple of days. A photo of my mates sunburnt legs from the trip attached. Hope you enjoyed my story more than i enjoyed that trip.

I was a commercial fisherman in the 60s and 70s, mainly prawn trawlers, a very dangerous occupation in those days. I was involved in two collisions at sea, 4 or 5 fires on board, knocked overboard two times with the net, broke my back in Princess Charlotte bay with the trawler sinking in big seas. I had a rope tied to my waist, thrown overboard and pulled aboard another trawler and taken to Cooktown. But the most frightening of all was in flat calm conditions around August 2012.

I was retired and had a 30’ powercat, at anchor on the Barwon banks, at my favourite fishing spot. I had loaded the esky with an assortment of reef fish at midnight and went below for a sleep, setting the alarm on my phone for 4 am for the morning fish. At 4 am the alarm went off and I tried to change clothes but there’s not a lot of headroom so I managed to shed my pants. With my clean pants and phone in hand I stepped up to the cabin as I did I felt a hard shunt. I looked towards the stern only to see it disappear and a wall of green water coming towards me. A whale had breached under the port stern quarter and lifted the port side and as it did the starboard stern went under water.

The boat capsized trapping me inside the cabin in an air pocket. It was 4 am, in the middle of winter, pitch
black! I was trapped by the large esky which was spewing fish out of it. Thankfully I eventually made my way out of the boat on top of the water and climbed onto the upturned hull. There was only a metre of boat out of the water and because it was Monday morning after a flat calm weekend, I did not expect a boat to come by. But one did! I could see it’s nav lights first both red and green then only green then none. They didn’t see or hear me. Not long after daylight I could see another boat coming straight towards me but stopped 100 mtrs away. I was yelling as loud as I could eventually they heard me and came to my aid. They had thought some silly bugger was on a JetSki 20 miles east of Mooloolaba.

Remember I was getting changed. Well when rescued all I had on was a t-shirt. I was given a pair of track suit
pants and a towel. 3 lovely gentlemen from Brisbane had taken Monday off to go fishing. On the way they were involved in an accident with a stolen car which was being pursued by the police so they nearly didn’t get to the boat ramp let alone rescue me. The Mooloolaba coast guard were contacted and took around 3 hours to reach us. I was then transferred to the 40’ coast guard vessel and after an hour or so they were able to right the powercat and commenced towing it to mooloolaba. Not long after we started the tow I suffered a heart attack and a helicopter was dispatched. The coast guard was advised to abandon the tow and proceed on course to Mooloolaba at speed. As soon as the boat slowed to let go the tow line the cat rolled over again! Meanwhile I was lying on the wheelhouse floor in pain.

A while later the AGL helicopter was above us and a basket was lowered to the deck. The boat was underway all the time. I was placed into the basket and as I was being winched off the deck the basket slammed into the back of the boat. I was winched on board and taken to hospital.

I had a Neuro stimulation device implanted inside me for back and leg pain. So when the basket hit the boat I took a direct hit to the area of my body where the medical device was inside me. As a consequence it went berserk inside me cramping my hands legs etc. I was in Nambour hospital and they had to fly a computer control unit from Brisbane so they could turn it off, but when it arrived doctors didn’t know how to operate it as it was new technology. They eventually figured it out and turned it off. I recovered quickly and now have 3 stents in my heart. I learned later the coastguard and the AGL helicopter practised the exact scenario 1 week earlier how lucky was that?

After I recovered my family hired a large cruise boat and invited all who were involved in my rescue from the
radio operator to the boat crew and the helicopter crew and of course the 3 gentleman who found me. We all cruised the Mooloolah river, drank, ate plenty of seafood and told lies for the evening. It was great.

Moral of the story it hasn’t gotta be rough or stormy for things to go wrong on the water.

Take care!