Rob, who I met at the Wooden Boat Festival down in Hobart, suggested a sail from Altona Sunday. He has built a very beautifully finished Storer Kombi canoe, and wanted an inaugural sail. The Bom was predicting a 32 degree day with Northerlies. I know these are seldom good sailing days - the Bom often underestimates Northerlies here. But the revised forecast was showing 10-12 knots, and against my inner warning voice, I didn't try to put him off.
Rob was late getting down, and rigging a boat for the first time always takes a while. It was nearly 12, and getting hot, by the time we got on the water, and the wind was gusting and building. Rob wisely decided that a first sail with a strong off shore wind was not a great idea. I had the Skerry in and sail up, so I went for a sail up and down staying reasonably close in. Good practice for heavy weather sailing. Rob came out again for paddle for a while. It wasn't that pleasant, and when I saw him heading back to the beach I dropped started to head in as well under oars. I was almost to the beach when I spotted two heads in the water a hundred metres or so south of the safe harbour wall. Two paddle boarders, a dad and his son, maybe 11, were slowly swimming back towards shore. I let the boat blow back out and asked if they needed help. The father said they would keep swimming but asked if I could stay close by till they were safe, just in case. This proved to be a challenge as the wind was,by now gusting at round 30 knots.
The nose kept blowing off and we would do a big loop downwind to get back on course. I managed to keep a boat length away from them and offered encouraging commentary till they got back to shore.
I am not sure how much help I could have been. I was actually worried I was going to wind up being blown off shore in those winds.
On reflection, and should a similar situation arise, a better way to have handled this would have been to get directly upwind, drop anchor and let rode out till I was near them. I was too busy rowing to hold station to be able to do much else. With an anchor out I could have got a throw rope ready, taken down the mast to reduce windage, and generally have had more options. Oh well, live and learn.
I was a bit dehydrated and heat struck afterwards I think, and I am stuffed today.
On the bright side, Living Boat Trust have put a nice link to my Tawe Nunnugah video. https://livingboattrust.org.au/2023/03/03/missed-the-2023-tawe-nunnugah/
And I have finished my written account over the raid and sent it off. If Small Boats don't want it I hope some other platform might take some version, or I can blog it!
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