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Old 31-05-2021, 04:09   #46
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Surfing has taught me quite a lot about the ocean.
One of those things is to wait for a big set, and then jump off the rocks.
Maybe these poor folks got caught by a long gap between sets.
Personally, I draw the line at 1.5 m when bar crossing. You can’t duck dive a catamaran.
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Old 31-05-2021, 10:09   #47
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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Originally Posted by chrisr View Post
the FP has engine access hatches on the sterns. just wondering if being thrown around so badly allowed water to enter the engine bays and electrical problem ?

cheers,
Hear, hear - engine access hatches (and engine air intakes!) on most production catamarans are not designed to handle seas like these.

And if an engine needs to be accessed, it’s hard to do it in high waves: it’s not comfortable to have bow into the waves, and with following seas a rogue wave means a wet engine, generator, etc.
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Old 31-05-2021, 12:44   #48
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

I would think most cats are not designed to handle breaking waves head-on, the large flat surface under the trampoline is always going to stop forward momentum.
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Old 31-05-2021, 15:16   #49
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Tomales Bay Bar

I sailed my SeaRunner 37 to Tomales Bay (in Marin County, north of San Francisco) from my home port of Half Moon Bay to haul out in December of 1973, because it was the only place in the Bay Area I found that could handle my 22' wide tri. Every marina I called had 16'-wide Travel-Lifts and couldn't haul my boat out of the water so I could work on it.

(Below) Spice in Hawaii in 1977, 4 years after her Tomales Bay Bar incident.



The purpose of the trip was to install the shaft, prop strut, and shaft log for my 6 hp diesel inboard engine. After sailing the boat "pure and engineless" for 5 years, I had finally broke down and bought an engine.

This was because my friends were telling me horror stories of boats getting swept onto reefs in the South Pacific in calms because their engine failed or they had none. So, when we went across the Tomales Bay bar, the engine was in the engine room, lashed firmly down to the engine beds; completely useless without the prop and shaft.

I took this trip with a friend, Joseph Rodgers. Joseph and I were buddies who were going sailing together to Paradise when we got the engine in and some money in the kitty, so he crewed up with me from Half Moon Bay, which was “Spice’s” home port at the time. It was an overnight trip in the light airs and fog to get through the Golden Gate shipping lanes, where the big traffic is enough to give any sailor the heebie-jeebies, and I hadn't gotten any sleep for about 36 hours.


We got to the entrance to Tomales Bay about a half hour before the time my calculations said should be slack tide. See, I even knew that you're not supposed to cross a bar on an outgoing tide cause it undercuts the waves and makes them break on you; I thought we’d timed it perfectly. Because we had a nice 15 knot breeze coming off the land and plenty of way on, we headed towards the bar.

As we got a little closer, we could see sets consisting of 4 to 5 large waves breaking all the way across the entrance to the bay, about 1,500 feet across. I felt confident and in control of the boat since we were making 8 to 9 knots through the water closehauled into the land breeze, so I timed the sets, sheeted in and drove for the bar on the back of the last wave in a set. And then the wind died completely.

We just sat there, dead in the water, watching the next set coming up behind us. As they got closer and closer I craned my neck up forward to locate the 12-foot tall 8-ton steel channel bouy that the chart said was somewhere in front of us. Couldn't see it. Then I gave up and watched the waves behind us til the last possible second to get lined up for whatever was next.


The last thing I saw before I turned forward to concentrate on my steering was a wave that was breaking onto us. Its top was a couple of feet higher than the top of the windvane, (which was 12 feet off the water). The next thing I saw looking forward was Joseph's eyes, which had gone hugely wide, staring white and crazy.

Joseph's job was holding the haul-down line for the centerboard, which we had uncleated because I had some silly idea that the bar was shallow and that the board, which had a 6' draft fully down, might hit the bottom and need to kick up to ride over the bar. I told Joseph to feel for it, let the board kick up, then pull it down again when we got to deeper water. Joseph had forgotten completely about the centerboard and was in some deeper, more primitive place. And then everything was underwater.

I remember holding my breath for what seemed like forever, then the water draining down past the top of my head, past my shoulders, down the side decks of the boat, then we were bouncing forward at a 45-degree angle like a 37-foot surfboard some Olympian surfer god had lost, at maybe 20 knots or so on the fifteen-foot wall of foam that the breaking wave had turned into. I cranked and cranked on the wheel with no discernible result, then Spice leveled off, straightened out, and took off in front of the wall of foam. In solid water now, she steered like a race car, with the slightest touch on the wheel sending her veering from side to side.

We coasted a little further on that wave, then were beyond the bar and moving into the Bay on a barely perceptible breeze. It was a beautiful sunny day, with little fluffy clouds in the deep blue sky. My windvane was gone, its 1" stainless steel shaft snapped off. My beautiful yellow unsinkable foam-core dinghy, which had been double-lashed to the cabintop, was also gone.


Upon further checking, we found two feet of water in the bilge, that, although all the hatches had been closed and dogged, had made its way in somehow. Inside the boat it looked like someone with a firehose had cut loose. Everything was soaked and thrown upside down. Needless to say, we were wet and cold.

We sailed in to Marconi Cove, a little marina further in along the Bay, tied to the dock, and were welcomed and treated to the story of the 38' ketch which just last month had rolled and drowned four people at the bar in conditions not quite as bad as those we just experienced.


My friend Joseph got off at the dock, and didn't come by much after that. He never mentioned sailing to Paradise. And I never saw the indestructable, unsinkable, bright yellow dinghy again. Had to build another one.

Watch out on them bars!

With Warm Aloha, Tim
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Old 31-05-2021, 15:30   #50
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Great story, Kaimana. Well told, too. Thank you.

Ann
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Old 31-05-2021, 15:35   #51
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Quote:
Originally Posted by seaskip View Post
Surfing has taught me quite a lot about the ocean.
One of those things is to wait for a big set, and then jump off the rocks.
Maybe these poor folks got caught by a long gap between sets.
Personally, I draw the line at 1.5 m when bar crossing. You can’t duck dive a catamaran.
Yes, surfing experience gives you a good lay of the land. It looks like if he had turned to port and gone 50-100m north when over that deep gully/channel they would have been fine as the sets were breaking straight off the entrance outside that channel and not breaking just a little to the north.
Hope the boat is OK.
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Old 31-05-2021, 15:39   #52
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat View Post
Beats me why you'd try to go out. I can understand someone wanting to get in, but going out in thise conditions?

And they usually only last a few days, why not wait? Tweed Heads is safe and comfortable, easy to get supplies....

Also, where were they going? Either direction they're facing bar crossings...
Good comment.
I was surprised anyone would have out there as large swell conditions were known and cautions broadcast.
Virtually every anchorage north of Sydney to Southport is a bar and likely bar conditions are ist in ones mind when planning.

Their survival also shows the inherent stability of sailing cats.
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Old 31-05-2021, 15:55   #53
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Every bar in NSW is the most dangerous bar in NSW according to the locals.
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Old 31-05-2021, 16:28   #54
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

^^^^
Our first year in Oz, we were told that the Ballina Bar routinely claimed one fishing boat a year. Some friends of ours saw a guy lose his boat there, and put him up for 2 or 3 weeks afterwards....

So I'd nominate that one as scary! At least to me. Timing is everything.

Most dangerous! Well that all depends on the conditions on the bar at the time. One time we did an overnighter when the bar at Camden Haven looked impassable, went clear on down to Pt. Stephens, where one can usually get in safely via the north side.

I wonder if we'll hear how the Begonia fared?

Ann
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Old 31-05-2021, 18:45   #55
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

Thanks also from me Kaimana. Top story.
The things we survive !
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Old 01-06-2021, 03:38   #56
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

The skipper is a moron..nothing good about it...at least nobody was hurt...
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Old 01-06-2021, 04:05   #57
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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The skipper is a moron..nothing good about it...at least nobody was hurt...
Thank heavens you’re in the Phillipines.
I’ll probably never have to share an anchorage with you, mr perfect.
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Old 01-06-2021, 04:46   #58
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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Originally Posted by JPA Cate View Post
Here's a link to the webcam at Lake Macquarie. It'll get you into the system. https://roads-waterways.transport.ns...macquarie.html

To me, at Narooma, the entry is so narrow because of the sandbars that in some cases you wouldn't be able to turn around before getting into the surf--and for us, it is rather shallow-- but this is not true of most of the exits. At Lake Macquarie, there are moorings past the bridge on the way out, should the bar change before you got there; and mostly (like the Clarence) there's plenty of room for us to turn around, and we don't have the advantage of a spade rudder (ours is hung on a 3/4 skeg).

We follow Alan Lucas' advice about the entries and exits: wait till the run-in has begun to enter; wait till the surf has laid down to exit. Some of the NSW barred entrances have a whole lot of impounded water in back of them, that has to come out a small entry, guarded by rocky bits, and the outflow may be running at 7 knots at Foster-Tuncurry, for instance, so one does need to plan, and after heavy rains, sometimes the runout lasts for a whole tidal cycle. [This is also true for Macquarie Hbr., TAS, and "Hell's Gate", a real challenge for ships in the old days, without engines. Fortunately, Pilot's Bay offers protection from the strong SWs. The point being that anywhere with a lot of impounded water and a narrow, rocky exit/entrance is best entered or left when the water is flat and there is not too much current that you won't be able to control your boat.]

Ann
I tried for Port Maquarie from forty miles out and missed it by 12 miles,
I was going backwards in 5 metre waves and a screaming wind on the nose,, and the south bound current,
All the welds had broken off on my dinghy davits and I was losing the lot over the back and that included my back stay to the mast, Which if it went, would more than likely take my mast with it,
So I went south and came into the Tuncurry Forster inlet at 2-30 AM with the search and rescues guidance, On a full outgoing tide,
I was doing 8 knots on the motor, Flat out, and 1 knot on the GPS,
Thats not an experience I would like to do again,
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Old 01-06-2021, 22:14   #59
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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Thank heavens you’re in the Phillipines.
I’ll probably never have to share an anchorage with you, mr perfect.
I don't really care where you anchor.
This blog was about crossing the Tweet river bar entrance under most unsuitable conditions.
Not just could he have lost his boat but could have quite easily drowned.
I was stationed with the Air-Sea Rescue in Ballina in early 2000.
So I do know a bit about river bars...
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Old 01-06-2021, 22:22   #60
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Re: Tweed Heads, Australia bar

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Originally Posted by Icarus View Post
I don't really care where you anchor.
This blog was about crossing the Tweet river bar entrance under most unsuitable conditions.
Not just could he have lost his boat but could have quite easily drowned.
I was stationed with the Air-Sea Rescue in Ballina in early 2000.
So I do know a bit about river bars...
Your experience may have scarred you. It doesn’t excuse you.
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