So much for leisurely sailing plans. Merri was urgently needed home, so I’d just escorted her ashore and said goodbye at the taxi pick-up spot. And just like that, the holiday had come to an end. The rest of this trip was purely a delivery run—get to Fremantle as fast as possible.
(August 28th) There was no point lingering, so I promptly weighed anchor at 07:55. It was blowing 22~25 knots from the southeast, which meant close-hauled upwind sailing. Outside of the semi-protected waters of Champion Bay, the seas had already built to 3m. I was sailing with a single-reefed main and jib.
It was wet and bumpy. For the first time, I noticed the heeling routinely reaching 10°, which was initially disconcerting. Certainly, it was nothing like on a monohull, but it was much more than I was used to with Arriba. There was more green water than usual too. The forward saloon hatch on the port (windward) side started leaking a little, for the first time since the Timor Sea. I made a mental note to attend to that.
After traveling for two weeks with four people, being the only person on board felt surreal. Not only were there fewer persons; there was much less stuff. The boat felt spacious for the first time in quite a while. However, the main cabin at the bow was too bouncy, so I spent most of my time in the saloon. With 360° visibility from within, there was little need to venture outside into the cockpit.
By midnight, I’d logged 117 nautical miles, but the zig-zag tacking meant I was only 83 nautical miles closer to Fremantle. The wind was holding at 23 knots from the ESE and our SoG was 7.8 knots at 40° to the wind. This was the kind of upwind performance I could only have dreamed of in Arriba.
I used my trusty mechanical kitchen timer to wake me every thirty minutes. Sleeping on the couch in the saloon meant my head was directly below a net that held fruit and veggies. By placing the timer in the net it was mere inches above my head. The sound was deafening and impossible to ignore. As a backup, I also scheduled an alarm on my phone, which would ring until turned off.
I quickly adapted to the punctuated sleep schedule and generally fell asleep within minutes of shutting my eyes. To be clear, sleeping in thirty-minute chunks is not sustainable over long periods without paying a toll—both physical and cognitive. Physically, exhaustion starts to set in and muscle recovery takes longer. Cognitively, your reaction times become slower and your ability to reason becomes impaired. So it’s only a short-to-medium-term strategy that works for a few days. Having slept very well at anchor the previous night in Geraldton, I’d probably banked some sleep too.
During the night, the wind swung more to the south, forcing me to veer well offshore. For the first time since leaving Timor, I left Australia’s continental shelf.
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| Tacking for shore after leaving the continental shelf. |
(August 29th) I waited until sunrise before tacking for shore. By 08:00, marking 24 hours at sea, I had logged 179 nautical miles. The wind moderated to 17 knots and the seas backed off to about 2m. Lightning’s slender hulls pierced through the head seas throwing up plumes of spray (top photo). Nevertheless, the relentless chop kept stealing a knot here and there. At 11:00, I shook out the reef to help sustain a 6-knot boat speed.
Lobster pots were everywhere along this stretch of coastline and I made frequent minor course adjustments to avoid the buoys. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to spot them in darkness or poor light. At 18:30, just as the light was fading, my starboard motor, which was not retracted, snagged the line between two buoys. Our boat speed plummeted to two knots, but there was still too much force on the line to simply untie it from the propeller. On most boats, the only way to remedy this would be to enter the water and swim to the propeller—not an enticing prospect for a single-handed sailor. Fortunately, I’d specified inspection hatches for Lightning’s outboard motors. I was able to open the hatch and easily cut the line, from the safety of being onboard.
The easterly overnight had been a blessing while heading south, but now Fremantle lay twenty nautical miles upwind. To avoid arriving in darkness, I deliberately overshot Rottnest Island. I then slowly sailed a long course along the west and north coasts of Rottnest Island, staying well offshore to avoid the shallows and reefs that surround the island (below).
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| Approaching Fremantle. |
The bustling lights of Perth slowly faded into the dawn. Watching the sunrise, with my final destination almost in sight, brought a sense of relief. My last hurdle was getting into my allotted berth at the marina. With only my starboard motor, I had been dreading negotiating tight spaces. Fortunately, once inside the marina I only had to turn to port, which was straightforward. A starboard turn would probably have required a tow.
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| Berthed at Fremantle Sailing Club. |
(August 30th) At 08:15, Lightning was safely berthed at the Collector Jetty of the Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC), a sister club of the Cruising Yacht Club of SA (CYCSA). I’d sailed 329 nautical miles, all of it upwind, in just over 48 hours. After two days of pounding head seas, both Lightning and her skipper came through without a scratch.
OVER.
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