Into the Storm (11 page)

Delf began the winch, but as they were being lifted to the helicopter something smashed the side of Michelle's head. She saw black “starry things,” then came out of her daze and asked the terrified sailor, “What the f—k happened?”

“You've just been hit in the head with a metal cylinder on the life raft,” he explained.

Michelle had encountered the same problem that Kristy had experienced earlier. The waves and the wind had picked up the life raft and wrapped it around the winch cable. Only this time, the wind didn't unravel the raft.

Michelle could see that the cable was fouled with rope from the raft tangled around it. She gave Delf the “winch out” signal, a large tap on her head, and she and the survivor went back down into the water.

Michelle knew that if the snarled cable threatened the safety of the helicopter, Delf would have to cut the winch line and they would be left adrift.
What will we do if we are cut off?
she wondered. Michelle quickly decided that she could grab onto the life raft and flip it over herself and the survivor. Then she would get him into the raft so they had shelter and create some sort of beacon so they could be tracked.

Seconds later, Michelle grabbed a plastic knife out of her harness. She sawed on the rope from the life raft and prayed that her knife would cut the 1-inch-thick line. The knife sliced through the rope, and Michelle felt the pressure release as the raft blew free of the cable.

Michelle turned and looked at the sailor. He had been frightened before, but by this time he was paralyzed with fear. She tried to calm him down and explained that they were going to be winched again. Once more, she signaled to Delf who activated the winch. Together they got the terrified survivor into the helicopter. He was in a state of shock, but alive and unharmed.

Michelle sat on the edge of the helicopter, and Delf asked, “Are you all right?” Michelle looked down at the one remaining survivor, left on the sinking boat with no life raft. She was concerned that the winch cable, which was kinked, could be damaged from the entanglement. She asked Delf if the cable would hold. “In the circumstances,” he responded,” I think it is okay to winch.” Michelle nodded. “I have to do this again,” she said, and Delf lowered her into the water.

The last survivor was waiting on what was left of
Stand Aside
. As Michelle approached, he jumped into the water. The second winch was easier. She didn't try to put the strop over his head and bulky equipment; she slipped it around his feet and up under his arms. Delf started the winch, and they went up without incident. The last crew member of
Stand Aside
had been winched to safety.

On the trip back to the mainland, both Kristy and Michelle had time to think about what had just happened. They had faced the very real possibility that they might die. If the winch cable had been cut, they would have been left adrift with little hope of rescue. They had both come face-to-face with their own mortality. They had overcome their fears, and they had saved four lives.

When the helicopter returned to Mallacoota, the sailors they had rescued stepped out onto the tarmac. The police quickly ran up with blankets, which they offered to Kristy and Michelle. Kristy looked at one officer and said, “You better give them to the guys we just rescued.” The officer looked at her with an incredulous stare. “You mean you're not the ones that were rescued?”

“No” she replied, “It was these gentlemen here.” Asked later about the incident, Kristy smiled and said, “I think it surprised a lot of people because they thought…Well, I guess they assumed that because we were the girls, we were the ones that were rescued, not the ones doing the rescuing.”

A
fter the knockdown that tore the anemometer off the top of the mast, the Ramblers had to do some quick and serious thinking about their options. The
Sword of Orion
hadn't broadcast its warning yet, but everyone knew that conditions were dangerous and getting worse.

As Ed, Bob, and Arthur engaged in a tense discussion about whether to pull out of the race, they saw another boat heading in the opposite direction. The boat was bigger than
AFR Midnight Rambler
. In the distance it appeared to be a BH 41—a 41-foot cruiser-racer, and it was not doing well.

Steering a boat in big waves is no easy task, especially with the wind coming from behind. As the boat slides down the waves, the rudder is less responsive and the helmsman has much less control. The BH 41 seemed to be sailing erratically, and Bob was carefully following her movements. Ed shouted over, “She's carrying on a real treat, yawing and rolling all over the place!” Bob nodded in agreement.

Ed, Arthur, and Bob met again to consider their options. The port of Eden was 40 miles behind them, but that meant turning in the face of the storm and running with their back to the wind. The BH 41 had shown them what that would bring. The first safe port in Tasmania was 200 miles into the teeth of the storm. The temptation to turn around and run for shelter—only 40 miles away—was huge. They all wanted to do it, but they knew the risks.

The crew had been through big waves in '94, so they realized how seas like this could affect a boat as small as their 35-footer. Turning around would be dicey. The change in direction would increase their chances of taking a wave beam on, from the side. With the size of these waves, there was a fair chance they could be rolled 360 degrees.

The Ramblers had no way of knowing what had happened with
Stand Aside
and
Siena
. But they knew that a roll would likely mean they'd be dismasted. If that happened, there was a very good chance that someone would die.

Neither pressing ahead nor turning back felt safe. But Ed was convinced that the crew was capable and they were tough. Though Chris was in pain, he was talking clearly and coherently, and making repeated requests to come up on deck and help. Taking all that into account, Ed and the crew agreed on what they needed to do.

There was no vote, no show of hands, and no formal meeting. But after Ed had spoken with everyone, the Ramblers were in complete agreement:
AFR Midnight Rambler
would sail into the storm and make the almost 500-mile journey to Hobart. They double-checked their harnesses, emergency signaling equipment, and life rafts. Whatever happened, they would be ready. It was not easy going. Official records of the Bureau of Meteorology later showed that the maximum
average
winds in the Bass Strait reached 60 knots, with frequent gusts close of 75. These sustained winds generated massive waves more than 80 feet high.

One way of understanding what the Ramblers would encounter is to use the
Beaufort Scale
as a yardstick. The Beaufort Scale—initially designed to provide a common language to describe the effect of wind and waves on the sails of a warship—is still used as a way of understanding severe weather conditions.

Based on the official Bureau of Meteorology estimates,
AFR Midnight Rambler
was sailing into weather conditions that, on the Beaufort Scale, would be classified as a
Force 11 Violent Storm
. There were reliable reports, however, that conditions were, in fact, considerably worse than those described by the Bureau of Meteorology. According to these reports, boats in the Bass Strait would encounter a
Force 12 Hurricane
.

In a Beaufort
Force 12 Hurricane
, winds are greater than 64 knots, the air is filled with foam, waves are over 45 feet, the sea is completely white with driving spray, and visibility is greatly reduced. For a small boat, a
Force 12 Hurricane
is hell on white water.

One of the weather accounts came from Darryl Jones, pilot of the police helicopter
Polair 1
initially dispatched to the
Stand Aside
rescue operation.
¹
Shortly after departing, he was diverted by Australian Search and Rescue (AusSAR) to assist with the search for another boat,
Business Post Naiad
. Then his orders changed once more, and he was redirected to rescue a crew member who had been washed overboard from the yacht
Kingurra
.

On his way to the first search location, Jones encountered winds over 85 knots. These were the strongest winds he had ever experienced in twelve years with the Police Air Wing. The helicopter normally cruised at 120 knots, but the strong tailwinds increased his airspeed to 205 knots.
²

When Jones began the search for the missing
Kingurra
sailor, the sea was—as he described it—in a “wild and horrendous state.” There were rain showers and continuous sea spray with a cloud base extending from 600 to 2,000 feet. The wind was blowing about 75 knots, and the waves were 80 to 90 feet high.

The police crew finally located the missing man, John Campbell, who was drifting some 300 yards from the boat. Constable David Key was winched into the water, and Jones held a 100-foot hover above him. When Jones looked up and saw a wall of water coming toward the chopper, he realized he would need to gain altitude quickly to avoid being swamped. Jones climbed 50 feet, and the wave missed the helicopter by about 10 feet as measured by the radio altimeter. It had to be well over 100 feet high.

No two storms are ever exactly alike, but these conditions were much like the extreme weather encountered by sailors off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1991. In that Halloween nor'easter—described in Sebastian Junger's book,
The Perfect Storm
—waves over 100 feet and sustained winds of 60 knots were recorded. This “meteorological hell” led to the deaths of the six fishermen on the
Andrea Gail
, six other fatalities, and millions of dollars in damage. In many ways, the '91 Nova Scotia storm and the '98 Australian weather bomb were proving to be eerily similar.

Both storms were destructive, and both created extraordinarily high waves. But the waves of the Bass Strait were uniquely dangerous. Sailors call the Bass Strait
the washing machine
, and with good reason. Waves in the Strait are confused, and they can churn in from any direction. The turmoil created by these waves makes them even more daunting than waves in the open ocean.

Not only were the
Rambler
and her crew in a confused sea of extremely high waves, they were also fighting something else. Bass Strait waves are high—and they are “sharp,” too. Because the Strait is so shallow, waves form like surf hitting the beach on a shoreline. In this weather bomb, the wind drove the waves to tremendous heights with menacingly steep faces.

From the deck of a boat, or even from a helicopter, the waves looked like gigantic moving walls of green seawater. Like waves on a beach, they would curl and break, spewing clouds of white foam at the top. The trailing edges of the waves were even steeper than the faces. Successfully maneuvering a boat through these cliffs of water took extraordinary skill.

If the
Rambler
tried to steer directly up the face of one of these waves, the bow of the boat could be thrust up violently, upending the boat until it capsized. And steering down the sharp waves could end in
pitchpoling
, with the stern pitching forward over the bow and sinking the boat.

As the most experienced helmsman, Ed Psaltis took responsibility for steering the
AFR Midnight Rambler
through the waves. Memories of the 1994 race were very much on his mind. When
Nuzulu
capsized, Ed was trapped underwater. If the boat hadn't righted itself, he would have drowned.

That experience had scared the hell out of him. Ed knew that turning 90 degrees to the face of a wave meant that they might get rolled. Even more anxiety-provoking, the waves in ‘94 were only 30 to 40 feet. Now they were more than twice as high. Especially on a small boat, the helmsman can't afford to be sideways in the waves. Ed had learned that the hard way.

Ed was also thinking about the things that Australian sailing legend James Hardy had said about the disastrous 1979 Fastnet Race. Hardy had been one of Ed's idols since he was a boy, and Ed had read about his experiences. Hardy was the helmsman on a well-known boat named
Impetuous
, and he successfully steered
Impetuous
through a Force 10 storm in the '79 race.

Ed remembered the strategy Hardy used in that deadly race.
Take the waves at about 60 degrees, don't go straight into them. Go up into the wave as it approaches you, and pull over the top to avoid going into thin air. Then steer down the other side and back onto your course
.

What Hardy had done in the Fastnet worked for him, and what the Ramblers had tried in ‘94 didn't. They had been rolled. Ed's bad experience and Hardy's advice converged, and Ed developed a plan. He would steer up into the waves until he hit white water at the top, then slide down the backside. For the next ten hours, Ed would repeat the mantra
“60 degrees, 60 degrees, 60 degrees
.”

The wind was now blowing 60 to 70 knots, with stronger gusts of 80 knots or more. With the anemometer gone, there was no way to tell for sure. Jonno, for one, thought it was a blessing, since they couldn't quantify just how bad the conditions were. But regardless of the wind speeds, things were bad. When the strongest winds hit, they were engulfed in a whiteout and Ed was completely blinded at the helm.

The storm was unpredictable. At times the waves would drop to 20 or 30 feet, the height of a two- or three-story building. Waves like that were negotiable. Ed would start to relax, thinking,
We're getting over them okay, and we're in control
. Then, suddenly, a set of two or three or four of the 60-footers would come through and the Ramblers would be jolted into survival mode. It was a chaotic and erratic pattern: manageable waves and the feeling of relief, followed by a nasty set of green walls and white knuckles.

One of the most terrifying parts of the storm was the noise of the wind. It was like an old-fashioned teakettle, screaming with the sound of steam blasting from the spout—a high-pitched, deafening noise that never stopped. The only way the crew could communicate on deck was to stand next to each other, cup their hands, and shout until their voices were hoarse.

The Ramblers were not only frightened. They were freezing, wet, and some of the crew were seasick. They would throw up wherever they happened to be at the time. It wasn't a conscious act; it just happened. Normal bodily functions became unimportant. The only thing that mattered was survival.

Spray from the waves and the rain hit their faces like gravel pellets. Even with goggles, it was nearly impossible for Ed to face into the storm. But he had to know when the big waves were coming, so the Ramblers worked as a team and developed a system.

They agreed that two people would be on deck at any one time. The others would be below, protected from the storm. One person on deck would steer the boat as the helmsman, and the other would act as a
wave spotter
. The wave spotter had two responsibilities. One grueling job was to face into the storm, scanning the horizon for threatening waves. The second role was to act as a human shield, blocking the helmsman from the painful impact of the spray. With the wave spotter as his shield, the helmsman could crouch behind, ready to react when the time came.

The spotter's cry of “Bad wave!” would give the helmsman five to ten seconds to face into the storm, assess the danger, and make sure they had enough speed to maneuver over the wave. With the noise of the wind and the chaos of the storm, sometimes the spotter could shout only a single word—“big,” “bad,” or “wide.” But that was enough. The system worked.

People below deck were living in another world. Cut off from the struggle above, they were isolated and terrified. But they found a way to stay connected. After shouting his warning to the helmsman, the wave spotter would bang on the cabin to alert those below. As primitive as the signal was, it was comforting to have this human connection—for those below to know that their mates on deck were still there, doing their jobs, and watching out for their safety.

Even with Ed's extraordinary skill, it was impossible to maneuver flawlessly over each wave. When the boat reached the top of a big wave, Ed was blinded by 10 to 15 feet of white foam, and sometimes he would pull away too late.
AFR Midnight Rambler
would launch off the wave and fly into space, hanging in the air until it hit the trough ahead of the next wave.

There were no backs to the sharp waves, so the boat would drop vertically, 30 feet or more. When it hit bottom, a shock wave would resonate throughout the boat. The mast, supported by the wire rigging, was already under extreme pressure. Everyone knew it could turn into a pile driver, and they waited to see what would happen.