Recent Rescues & Assists Knockdown Knockdown – the very word sends a chill down your spine. This word lives in the mariners’ lexicon alongside other, similarly foreboding sounding words like ‘broach’ and ‘capsize’. Definitions vary as to what a knockdown is, but the consensus would seem to be a broadside roll to an extreme angle as a result of the actions of wind and/or sea. Quantification of the angle would seem somewhat arbitrary and it’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to concern yourself with as your vessel goes through the motion. Instead, references to railings and masts in the water provide a simpler and more poetic metric. Regardless, one thing is certain: a knockdown is a decidedly uncomfortable and potentially very dangerous event; and one which the crew of the Port Stephens lifeboat ‘Danial Thain’ experienced first-hand recently. This story has echoes of another rescue performed by the ‘Danial Thain’. On 21 April 2015, an East Coast Low parked off the Hunter coast generated cyclonic winds and huge seas which combined to drive a large sailing catamaran – ‘Reef Dragon’ – onto rocks in Fame Cove. That rescue operation was successful and earned the lifeboat crew the 2015 Australian Search and Rescue Award. This time around, the outcome would not be so good. Another East Coast Lower lashed the Hunter region for several days in early January 2016, causing widespread flooding and wind damage.  This low didn’t generate quite the same winds or seas as the April low, but still the winds gusted upwards of 50 knots and a combined sea and swell of six to eight metres pummelled the Port Stephens coast. A handful of sailing vessels transiting the area got caught up in this maelstrom and a dire situation rapidly evolved. Tragically, a 62 year old man at the helm of a small yacht, ‘Amante’, with five persons on board was washed overboard north of Broughton Island just before midday on 6 Jan 16. A major search and rescue effort involving two Westpac rescue helicopters, Nelson Bay Water Police and the ‘Danial Thain’ failed to find any sign of the man before atrocious weather conditions forced the search to be suspended. The sight of the ‘Danial Thain’ escorting ‘Amante’ into Nelson Bay Marina in the early evening was indeed a sad one to behold. Whilst this tragic event unfolded, other yachts also came to grief in the unrelenting cauldron outside Port Stephens’ iconic heads. The Marine Rescue radio base atop Nelson Head – home to the Port Stephens Division – would, over the course of this day, receive five mayday calls and the area’s marine search and rescue capabilities would be pushed to their limits. The Nelson Bay Water Police had, for example, departed their berth in the very early hours of 6 Jan 16 to assist another yacht north of the Port and wouldn’t return for some 21 hours, having become involved in the search for the missing yachtsman. Likewise, the Marine Rescue boats were heavily committed. The Division’s smaller RHIB lifeboat ‘Codi-k II’ had performed one assist in the morning in Salamander Bay before conditions became too dangerous for this vessel to operate. The 52 ft ARUN-class ‘Danial Thain’ had also towed a vessel in from Cabbage Tree Island in the morning, before joining the search and rescue effort for the missing yachtsman around midday. When she returned just before 8 pm that night with ‘Amante’ under escort, her crew had been battling atrocious seas for more than 10 hours. Her crew would now rest, but ‘Danial Thain’ would not. Another yacht, ‘M3 Mulberry Racing’, had requested assistance earlier in the day when well south of the Port, having lost her engine and fouled her rigging. With all search and rescue assets committed to the search for the missing yachtsman, the five people on board would have to ride out the conditions as best they could whilst the Port Stephens base maintained a close watch on their situation pending the release of a rescue vessel. This release came that evening, with ‘Danial Thain’ retasked by Marine Area Command (MAC) to assist M3. The unit thus activated a second full crew to take Danial Thain back out. When she arrived at her berth ahead of ‘Amante’, the second crew was there to assist with the berthing and to receive briefs from the offgoing crew. It was clear to all that the conditions outside were extreme. None of the returning crew, some with 30 plus years in the maritime environment, could recall worse conditions than what they had just endured, and they had done so in daylight. The new crew would confront these same, if not worsening, conditions in darkness. The Danial’s engines were left running as the crew changeover was effected. Sea sickness tablets, lifelines and personal EPIRBs were deftly passed around and then she was off again. Position reports at this time placed M3 almost directly east of the port at about 15 miles from the port limit and drifting to the north-nor-west at 2-3 knots in a very heavy five to six metre south-easterly swell topped with a very confused and breaking two metre sea. The Skipper and navigator conferred and course was set for a departure through the northern side of the heads with a route planned out through the islands and then on a heading of 040 degrees magnetic to intercept M3. As soon as the lifeboat cleared Nelson Head however, the foaming mass of white water engulfing the northern part of the port entrance incited a change of plans; a southern departure and then south of the islands before coming north east was a much more prudent option. The swells through the heads were large at four to five metres but longish and lazy. This changed markedly however as the Danial came around the southern headland – Tomaree – and entered what we call the ‘washing machine’, that area bounded by the heads and the three offshore islands where swell … Continue reading Recent Rescues & Assists