Where do I
begin recounting the past three and a half months of my life?... It’s been one
crazy ride after another on this ship in more ways than one. I gained the most
I’ve ever gained, and also lost the most I’ve ever lost, was the happiest I’ve
ever been, and nearly the saddest I’ve ever been, stood up as the best person
I’ve ever represented, and also fell as the worst person I’ve ever known. There
were the most grueling days of work, but also the most beautiful days of easy
sailing. I dealt with some of the most frustrating people I have ever met, and
spent time with amazing people I will never forget. These experiences have
taken more effort than I’ve ever spent in one place, and been more rewarding
than anything else and more disappointing than anything else. But most
importantly it has changed me and opened my eyes to more possibilities than I
ever imagined.
The whole
trip to Bundaberg was just ridiculous from the start. “Bizarre” is the term
Mark latched onto at one point, and it describes the entire trip perfectly.
From start to finish, there was not a twist or turn that was expected or
simple.
I showed up
in Sydney and was thrown into the midst of a quicky-refit on Southern Swan. Painting, scraping,
retensioning the rig, repairing the foremast, fixing the fire pump, mousing
shackles and seizing footropes, painting liferings… Close to our scheduled
departure date, I was helping Joe stuff some caulking into the hull and
realized the full magnitude of what we were trying to achieve. Swan had not been to sea in a least ten
years; she had passed her last survey for the harbour when out of the water for
a few days - that was when one of the shipwrites had accidentally poked a
chisel straight through the hull… And she was to sail about 900nm up the coast
to Bundaberg, Queensland and back. Luckily she had to be surveyed for coastal
waters before we could leave.
On our
scheduled departure date the surveyor came aboard, and was surprisingly happy
with the entire ship and crew and pronounced himself quite satisfied with
granting us the papers, somebody at maritime just had to produce a signature
which should have been in the next 3 days. So we said our goodbyes at White Bay
and headed over to Little Manly cove. For the next couple days we finished
bending on the sails, stowing the provisions, going through P’s laborious SMS
manual – after eight hours one day we weren’t halfway through – and preparing
the ship in general for departure. Still no paper from Maritime, and as the
window for making it to Bundaberg in time was closing, one afternoon Mike
decided that since the person he spoke to agreed that Søren
would do instead of Swan, we would
swap with the Søren Larsen.
Now
that would seem a simple enough solution at first, but then you have to factor
in that the Søren was in the middle
of a full daysail schedule, and wouldn’t be returning to White Bay until 2300.
No matter, this is Sydney Harbour Tall Ships, and they achieve the impossible
regardless of the cost. Twelve crew aboard Swan,
about fifteen aboard Søren, their
belongings, ships provisions, equipment all had to be swapped at 2300. That was
crazy. One young man who had joined that very day quit, and morale was not the
highest as we passed everything from raw sugar to marlinspikes back and forth
between the ships. At about 0330 the swap was complete and we steamed Søren to pumpout and topped off the
fuel. As we left for the open ocean it was decided we should break into
watches, so Al and I struggled to prop our eyelids open and Nikki kept us
company on the bow until 0800. We were on our way.
I
suppose I should mention why we were sailing to Bundaberg. Dan somehow landed
us a gig with Bundaberg Distillery Co. as a promotion for their upcoming 125th
anniversary. The gig sounded easy; arrive in Bundaberg on the 7th of
November for a photo shoot with branded sails, pick up 4 empty rum barrels and
sail back down the coast, stopping in Brisbane and Newcastle for tastings and
photos and making a dramatic entrance back through the Sydney heads at dawn on the
22nd of November. In return the rum company would pay for a new set
of sails for the ship, so it was a good deal for the ship. Bundaberg originally
chose the Swan for the task because
a) she is black, b) she apparently looks like a rum or pirate ship, and c) she
is black.
There
was also the matter of the branded sails. It had taken 3weeks to get Swan’s brandings; the designs were
simply screenprinted onto some stretchy material that was then sewn on top of
the sails. But now we were taking Søren,
so we left her second, older set of sails at White Bay and sailed with the new
set up the coast. Dan would in the meantime work on getting the old set branded
and drive them up to Bundaberg for us. That in itself was another crazy
adventure, but more on that end later.
The
trip up the coast was an experience like no other, it was a bit of a slog to
begin with as well. The engine on Søren
is an ancient 4-cylinder, 2-stroke diesel beast that spews oil from the exhaust
as she chugs upwind in heavy weather. Jon our new engineer had been recruited
for the trip because of his extensive knowledge of the Caterpillar engine that Swan had, but now we were on Søren and that posed new difficulties.
However, Jon stepped up to the plate and spent hours upon hours learning the
ins and outs of the beast and keeping her running.
Adjusting
to watches can take a bit of time as well, and the first week out was a bit
rough as the crew struggled with sleep deprivation and seasickness. Certain
personalities can get wearing as you become more sleep deprived as well, and
from the start there were some combinations that were just brewing trouble. Nothing
too dramatic happened on the way up, but I will just say the officer of my
watch was not my favourite person aboard. From receiving a ten minute lecture
on how to properly clean a butter dish after dinner to getting woken up two
hours after getting off watch by raw, grey, chopped flying fish in my face, by
the time we reached Bundaberg I was a bit short-tempered towards him.
We
wouldn’t have made it to Bundaberg in time either, if it weren’t for a nice
southerly that helped us out a few days after leaving Sydney. It was the most
impressive weather front I’ve seen yet. We were motoring with a few limp sails
into 10 knots from the Northwest; looking behind us the clouds started moving
faster over us, a few black wispy ones raced towards us and then spiraled
upwards like wraiths and in a few moments we were hit with 30 knots from the
South. It was phenomenal. We set nearly every canvas we had and flew northwards
along the coast at a great rate, sometimes reaching 12-13 knots (Søren will do 10 generally), with spray
flying over the bow and the seas increasing. There were a couple rough days in
the middle there, but we made it to Bundaberg on time, barely.
We
arrived in Bundaberg at 0300 on November 7th, dropped anchor up the
river, got a few new crew aboard, unbent the outer jib, t’gallant, lower
tops’l, course and mains’l, Dave arrived in a small tender with the branded
sails and we bent those on, weighed anchor and moved down river to the pier for
the 0900 photo shoot and meet with the big Bundaberg rum guys. The only
branding we were able to get in the short week it took to sail to Bundaberg was
vinyl stickers – vinyl that was designed to adhere to Dacron, not traditional
canvas… As we bent the sails on, we could tell the branding wasn’t going to
stick, especially sailing down the coast back to Sydney. To be continued…
