CAUGHT OUT IN 50 KNOTS! Free Range Sailing

I don't think I've ever been out in wind this strong. We're only sinking a little bit. Welcome to Free Range Sailing. Join us as we sail around Australia, visiting its wild places, in our 30-foot, 50-year-old sailing boat, Mirrool. It's Troy of the sailing yacht, Mirrool. I've just found that a yacht sunk on its mooring just south of the Stockton Bridge. We've been parked here. We woke up this morning and just saw it sunk. No, no, no, there's been nobody on the boats and no one's in any danger. I just didn't know who else to contact. That's a bit sad, it was a nice-looking yacht. That's gonna be a rough start to someone's day, but I'm glad it's not our boat. With the wind forecasted to be westerly, 15 to 20 knots, we were expecting a fast, smooth sail down the coast from Newcastle to Pittwater. Are they spinners? I think they're called common dockers. With that panel on the side? Yeah. You would've seen us before, and it was pretty mellow, and then the wind just boosted a lot. So we put a reef in, and yeah, we're getting along a lot faster now. We're reefed again. This time, not to slow the boat down, but there's a lot of bullets coming off the land there. Really strong westerly. That high's gone out, and it's like, I don't know, it's throwing out a little bit of a ridge down to the bottom. I don't know whether you'd call that a trough or not. But as the wind's circulating around, it's really accelerating. Poor old autopilot's getting waves. It's wind, gusts, it's having a bit of a hard time with it. Well, that's a lot better. Again, I just twitched that headsail in until it stabilized, so now it's balanced up with the main again. You know how we were sort of losing control, and we were getting swept around, and then the headsail would catch and come around again? So I just tuned it in a bit, and now they're really balanced well, and the tiller's only just barely moving, so it feels a lot better. It was worth just taking a bit of time. We're not going as fast as we possibly could, but we're a lot more comfortable reefed up like this, and just de-tuned a little bit on the headsail. What speed are we going? Six knots. I'd rather be comfortable than fast. Me too. So we're underway. We're a little bit more comfortable now. We're fully reefed, which means we've, oh, a big wave just crashed into the side of the boat. We're fully reefed, which means we've fully reduced the sail area, and we're heading towards, Pittwater to the Hawkesbury River. We really wanted to pull into Lake Macquarie, but it's not really gonna work with time constraints and various things, so we're skipping it this time, but yeah, we're gonna head into Pittwater and enjoy some nice harbor there. Main sail! Okay. Those bullets are big and fast, but we've got the sail down. We're just cruising on a little sheet of headsail. My hands are still shaking, holding the camera from getting the sail down. When it's like this, you've gotta really look along the furling line to the headsail furler, because we can make it past here, but then I have to a winch, just so it's sort of adjustable. But any chafe along there could be really dangerous, so if you start seeing a chafing, now we gotta pull it in while we can. It's something that's easily overlooked, because if that line chafes through now and let go, that whole sail will pop out. Sudden loading on the rig. That would be all bad, and it would be really hard to furl up again, if you'd have to drop it and bundle it. My leg copped a little bit of a graze bringing down the mainsail. It was pretty hectic. That non-skid's like sandpaper, isn't it? The non-skid is. It is literally sticky sandpaper, isn't it? Oh yeah. That you bought? Yeah. Yeah, so I got a nice graze. It looks like I've fallen down on the bitumen like a little kid. That's not very much of a fetch, but it's still picking up a nice little sea, isn't it? Snoppy, is the word for it? It's cloudy now, but with this wind, we're getting plenty of power into the batteries, which is good, because we spent all of yesterday sorting footage and editing videos, so we really put a big strain on the battery, so it's good that we're getting a top-up while we sail, because it's not very sunny today, so. Oh! Right down your back, too. Oh man, that just felt like someone just threw a bucket of water straight down my back. And the water's 18 degrees. Oh, I'm getting some nice wind chill now. Oh. That landed on my leg and it's stinging like crazy. Oh, from the, yeah. Yeah. From the salt. Ah! Put the splash hatch in, because it was water in here. We've been warned about these westerlies coming off the land, and it's pretty good practice for us before we head further south. We've gotta deal with the swells as well as we head further south. There's no swell at the moment. Our main thing today is this westerly will turn into a south-south westerly. Yes. So we have to get to where we're going just in the nick of time. Yes. Now all we need is like some big tuna to get in. Oh, yeah. Maybe we should bring the line in. No, no, it should be all right. Oh. We've got plenty of sail that we can just reap. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you just trundle along in a couple of knots. This, this won't be nothing. She'll be all right. I wonder if they're still saying there's 22 kilometer an hour winds. We'll just sit this one out, I think. I don't think I've ever been out in wind this strong. I put the autopilot away. Yeah. And I blew the autopilot off. Let's get going. That must be about 50 knots. It's what you call hatband weather. I've got the hatband on today. Wind is heavy too, eh? Yeah. Now this is ridiculous now. We've just hit like a really strong gust. Troy's out there. He's completely soaked. I just want to get the wet weather gear on him, but it's too hectic out there for me to go out there right now. And we're right close to land as well. Anyway, we're making way. Troy's put like the smallest little bit of headsail out, and we're still making way. It wouldn't be too bad if I was just in my wet weather gear. Yeah, I know. Instead of just hanging out here in the cheap waters. At least the air's hot. That's true. It is. That westerly is hot. So, what's happening is like, in between intervals when I get absolutely soaked, I dry out. You get blow dried? Ah! This weather, it's thrilling, but it's also exhausting and a little bit scary at times. I'm really thankful that Troy's like, got his cool. And he's really confident in the boat. And he's just such an awesome captain and skipper. But yeah, down here you wouldn't even know it's blowing 50 knots out there. So not only did that boat sink last night, but we also had a seagull fall in through the front hatch. Through the fly screen that we put over the hatch, it fell in and landed on our bed. And Troy was asleep and he picked it up and threw it out the window, and then it pooed all over our bed. Beginning to think that the sunk boat and the seagull on our bed, maybe that was a bit of an omen. There was some crazy weather coming today. I feel like it's eased a bit, baby. There it is. That's a relief. Now back to six knots. Very crusty. I just had to laugh when I saw how happy Troy was once he got his wet weather gear on. We've got a fully reefed main sail up now because the wind's just come just a little bit front of the beam. And we are going really fast. I think we're going seven or eight knots. Troy's just reefing because the wind's picked up again. It's just been constantly reefing and then letting out sail and then reefing again. So we're gonna start heading in towards the Hawkesbury pit water. But the wind is blowing westerly, so it's gonna be on the nose hard. And the whole way there is gonna be a real fight to get in. The highly variable conditions meant that oftentimes we had to be overpowered. Once we reached a point of too much heel on the really strong gusts, we had to let go of the main sheet to prevent cockpit flooding. We've tacked and we are sailing close hauled into Broken Bay. The gunwales are under the water. I would have given anything for a cutter rig with a nice little jib on an inner forestay. What's made it difficult is that it like, it goes down to less than 20 knots for a little while. Then it boosts up to 35, goes down a bit. Then you get 50 knot crazy gusts, you know, for like a good 10 minutes. I think we've proved our boom repair. Yes. We're only sinking a little bit. Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. I think I'm losing a few years of my life today. Aged a few years. Yeah, but you filled up the ones that you still have with doing something worthwhile, so it's all right. Yeah, I suppose. You all right? I'm a bit scared. Don't be scared. All right, don't sink the boat. I'm not gonna sink the boat. Oh my God. It's a real pain because the wind boosts up. And having it come off like this, it slows us down. Going to weather in 50 knots really sucks. I think as we get in that gap, it's gonna be worse. I might tack out of it. It looks like the shear water's having way too much fun over there. I don't think I wanna join them. It's a good thing between gusts. Yeah. While the winds were still strong, at least, we didn't have to put up with waves quite as big once we got inside the mouth of the Hawkesbury River. We've made it into Pittwater last night. It wasn't easy. Those 50 knot gusts, they sort of continued into the night. So as we were trying to come into Pittwater, of course we had to go west, and the wind was straight on the nose. So we tacked our way in, it was pretty difficult. Got a fair bit of salt spray, as you can see looking at the weather gear, everything's pretty much the same. I think Pascale and I are just gonna have a bit of a rest today. I know I need it. And then we're gonna have a bit of a look. Thanks for joining us on that wild ride this week. And if you like the video, don't forget to give it a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button. Also, when subscribing to Free Range Sailing, make sure you hit the bell button to stay notified of all our upcoming releases. See you next week.