Authors: Peter Carey
YOU WANT THE STORY of the southerly, said Jack Ledoux, but first I have to tell you about the Hawkesbury River.
The headwater of the Hawkesbury is near Goulburn, right over to the south-west of Sydney, and the river travels around the city almost in a circle. At Wisemans Ferry it heads east towards the coast. When it finally spills out into the sea it is about twenty miles north of the harbour bridge.
And when I say it spills out into the sea, there are times when it actually
boils
out into the sea.
This estuary is very aptly named Broken Bay because there's an immense chunk
broken
out of the coast, leaving a mouth about eight miles wide. There's Cape Three Points to the north and Barrenjoey to the south.
Then, inside the mouth, there's this worn and weathered sandstone remnant - Lion Island. This lion is couchant, its gruff head pointing out to sea. It's a bird sanctuary and you're not allowed on shore, but if you sneak up the lee side by the beach you can climb the back of the lion and sleep in the caves at the top.
Sometimes it's like a bloody millpond around Lion Island - polished surface, first hint of a nor'-easter coming in the morning, God's own place. But at other times when there has been heavy rain - and Sydney is subtropical so twelve inches of rain in three days is nothing to us - then all that weight of water gathers in the Hawkesbury and this brown liquid
spews
itself out into the ocean
and
if this happens at a time when there is a strong easterly on-shore gale blowing against that tidal stream
and
if it happens that the tide is also running out, then it is a place of ultimate evil. If you're in a small boat you should know enough to stay away.
But this story is not just about a southerly buster, it's about a very particular boat, so let me tell you why that boat came into being.
Anybody who doesn't have a boat in Sydney is not a citizen of Sydney. Well, that's my opinion, but if you're on Pittwater it's beyond opinion. You have no cars, no roads - you leave them behind at Church Point and travel home across the water by ferry, water taxi, or tinny. You know what a tinny is? A beat-up aluminium dinghy with a thirty-hp engine on the back. I've had plenty of tinnies but in 1984 I finally designed a wooden boat.
Now I've lived on Pittwater for nearly forty years but I've been sailing for even longer, since I was nine years of age. Most of that time was spent in racing boats, and in racing boats you don't carry
anything
along for the ride. Everything has to be pared back to the absolute bloody minimum. So I set out to design a boat that was the culmination of all that experience, but a boat that would also be wonderful for Pittwater.
Which means it had to be not only a sailing boat but it also had to row. And that's a hard equation because a sailing boat needs stability, and a rowing boat has to be long and thin and fine so it can be pulled through the water. It needs
instability.
The plans I finally delivered to the boat builder bridged these two qualities.
They were for a skiff, nineteen foot three overall, eighteen foot six on the waterline. She would be five foot gunwale to gunwale. She would draw eight inches with a hollow garboard. And her sections would be like a wine glass.
I designed a very fine bow, but I also gave her a fine stern. So the boat would be able to go in both directions. She would go through the water with the minimum of resistance and she would have a very fine sailing rig in her. She'd have a fully battened mainsail so when you saw her against the light, the ribs would show like a dragonfly wing. She'd have no centreboard or keel but leeboards to stop her being pushed sidewards by the wind. That would permit you to sneak up into the shallow creeks and estuaries, and because there would be no centreboard two of you would be able to sleep in the bottom of the boat, watch the birds early in the morning, and so forth.
It took seven weeks for my mate Stumpy to build her and it took me a year and a half to finish her off. She was made of three eighth-of-an-inch-thick skins of Australian red cedar, cross-laminated, epoxy glued and unbelievably strong. I named her
Dorothy,
after my mother.
Dorothy
was light, built like an eggshell, and she sailed wonderfully, but the way you kept her up was with your bodyweight. So she was dangerous, not by accident, but by design.
At the time of this story, friends of mine had built this
beautiful
small house up the reaches of the Hawkesbury about fifteen miles up from Lion Island. And I sailed up there one January afternoon. Beautiful weather. Nor'-easterly wind. I went up like a bloody flash. I passed the little waterfront village of Bar Point and everybody saw me going hurtling past and gave a great wave.
That's a nice-looking little boat.
They knew what they were looking at.
About nightfall I finally got up this tiny little creek where my friends live and I thought, I won't go ashore now, I'll sleep in the boat.
I had a great night's sleep and went on to have a wonderful day with my friends. But from the moment I opened my eyes next morning I saw we were in for a southerly change. In Sydney you always get twenty-four hours' notice of a southerly. You'll have what
looks
like a very clear day, but high up you might notice those mare's tails of cirrus clouds. These are the top part of a wedge of cold air being driven up by the front. These clouds will stretch for about six hundred miles, which equates to about twenty-four hours. What I'm saying is, the southerly was not a surprise to me. When I saw those mare's tails I knew it was coming. And I also knew, even then, lying in my boat, there was the real possibility of it being severe. It had been so hot and muggy.
These storms always begin from the southwest. Then they slowly shift around to the south, then to the south-east and then over the next few days they break to the east and the north-east. And when, finally, the wind shifts to the northwest you know the cycle is setting itself up again. That's the summer pattern in Sydney.
So the first stage of the cycle began on my second night upriver. A south-westerly.
When I woke next morning there was a strong southerly blowing. I looked up and saw these grey clouds moving like a conveyor belt and they were
fast.
Looked like thirty knots to me.
Oh, fuck, well 1'11 probably be OK.
I had expected it would be fast, but as I got out on to the river proper, I saw it was really
piping.
Thirty knots in the tropics is nothing, but thirty knots in a southerly is something different. Southerly air is polar maritime. It's thicker, colder, wetter. It's got more grunt.
So I
flew
down that bloody river. I had a
hairraising
ride. I went
planing
through the waterfront village of Brooklyn and through Bar Point again. The same people who had waved to me going up now saw this joker
flying
fucking past them. I barely had hands to wave.
I went under the Brooklyn Bridge at a rate of fucking knots. I went
haring
around the point at bloody Brooklyn and this is an open boat so it takes a bit of water and when you're going that fast there's a lot of spray around.
All the time the wind is across the river. That's OK, I'm not going into the wind. And the wind is not going against the tide. But this boat is a handful to sail at the best of times, so what you've got to do to
pump
it, you have to hold the mainsheet (which is the rope that holds the mainsail) in your teeth. You've got your feet under the straps. You're out over the side. You're steering with this hand and you've got your pumps hooked up so you can work them with your left hand. So you're like one of these jokers on the street corner with five musical instruments. With your right foot you're beating drums. With your left foot you're cracking walnuts. And you're flying down the river.
As I come down towards the opening, the river is getting much wider. There's been a lot of rain in the storm so there's a lot of brown water travelling towards the sea. There's also a high tide that's moving out, and the wind is moving to the south, and I know that the fucking southerly swell must be starting to come round Barrenjoey.
And I think,
oh shit.
At the same time I think,
so far so good.
And
I
go around Juno Point which is maybe two or three miles before the entry to the estuary. The tide rips around it and I am flying. The tide is doing four knots, easy, so that's an
extra
four knots added to my speed.
What a sail this is.
By this time I have been going for two hours and I am getting tired and I see, in the lee of the shore on the south side of the river, that boats are sheltering. And I see a mate of mine, a mooring-lifter, and I know I've still got this dangerous estuary to negotiate and I think, I
better pull out now. I'll get a tow back with him.
But I am getting closer and closer to home territory.
So far so good.
I am heading towards West Head by this time and I can see Lion Island ahead of me. There's a big sea. The waves are breaking on the 'bow' of the island, and they are exploding on the rocks and cascading up the cliffs.
So I think,
it's
OK, I
can sneak in close to the shore
. . .
The water is disturbed by the wind blowing against the tide. It's turned a really nasty colour, a filthy grey-green. The sky is leaden. And as I come past Flint and Steel Beach in the driving rain I begin to have second thoughts. I
might just whip in there and wait it out.
But no, I could fucking beat the world by this time. And I had a date with Brigit that night in the city.
Until this time I have been 'reaching', with the wind across the boat. But as I come into the opening of Pittwater, the wind is coming out like the mouth of a fucking trumpet. It is blowing forty knots and it is increasing.
I think,
fuck,
but it is too late. I can't turn around now even if I want to. I'm to the south of Lion Island and the wind is blowing from the south, so if I stop I'll be blown on to the rocks.
So, my only choice is get across the mouth of Pittwater, and I can tack under Barrenjoey headland and then I plan to sneak around the Joey and perhaps, with luck, on to the beach there. There are rain squalls and there isn't a bugger around anywhere. My big ambition now is to just make it to that beach in one piece.
I am pumping the bloody boat all the time and I get all the way across the mouth of Pittwater. I get under Barrenjoey. I tack. I start to work out under the Joey when I see this gust coming. It is blowing so hard it takes the spray right off the top of the water. As it comes it
turns
and it
twists.
Holy shit.
It picks me up and just dumps me straight in the drink.
My boat filled straight away. I was awash. Completely fucked. My sleeping bag started to drift off, my kit bag, my sketchbooks. The boat tipped upside down. The rudder fell out.
Well I can't swim, and besides, the golden rule of sailing boats is
stay with the boat.
So I hung on.
Slowly, of course, the wind pushed me out of the shelter of Barrenjoey and then I began to be carried out by the tide. And these great southerly seas were running around Barrenjoey. Ten, maybe twelve-foot waves. And naturally the bottom of the boat had been rubbed back to a racing finish. And as my mate Beetle said to me afterwards, I
could see the fingernail marks on the bottom of the boat.
Finally I was hanging on to one of the leeboards, but I got further and further out and the seas got bigger and bigger. By now it was about three in the afternoon. I was getting colder and tireder and I began getting washed off the boat. The waves were like surf waves. And I'd be washed off and I'd get back on board again and I'd be washed off. And the only thing I can remember, as I realised how serious this was, is
anger,
absolute fucking
anger.
It was almost the only thing that kept me warm.
I could occasionally see Pittwater appearing through the weather and I knew my mother's little place was down there and she, my boat's namesake, was quietly watching the television with a Scotch beside her.
But I'd blown it. I'd fucking blown it through absolute stupidity. And the tide was dragging me further and further out and I was starting to head for the mincer. I mean, Lion Island, where me and my boat would be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
And I thought,
that's it.
And:
you're a fuckwit.
So I just hung on, hoping for a miracle. Then I began to think I could see something. There was a great rain squall coming out of Pittwater and through it I could see
something.
Whatever it was, it was disappearing, then appearing, then disappearing. I thought it couldn't be a boat, but it was, a motor-boat, not heading up the river, but out to sea. I thought, what sort of an
idiot
would come out in this sort of weather?
But it came closer, and closer, and closer. And finally I could see it clearly - a 35-footer - and you know I never liked those hot-water boats, but here it was,
Jennifer,
with this tiny little fellow up there on the flying bridge. And he was towing a dinghy which
proved
he was insane. You never
ever
tow a dinghy in high seas, because the dinghy will swamp and then you are in real strife.
So here am I, about to drown, and I'm thinking,
oh Jesus, this bloke's mad.
But also
he's going to save me.
Jennifer
was now almost on top of me. She was raising up on these huge waves and crashing back down again but she came alongside me and as she came down on a wave I
grabbed
hold of the bow and it
swung
back up into the air and
Jennifer
lifted me up off
Dorothy
like a bloody crane.