When I worked full time, I used to envy full-time cruisers. Their full-time cruising lifestyle seemed very appealing, but I've come to embrace “commuter sailing”, which is balancing stretches at sea with time back home. After four months of sailing around Western Australia, it was good to be home again.
Home does not mean an end to sailing, though. I could hardly wait to sail to Kangaroo Island, my favorite sailing destination. Autumn gave way to winter, with storms more frequent and seas less forgiving. Winter sailing everywhere depends on getting the weather right and few places demand more respect than Backstairs Passage, the narrow passage between Kangaroo Island and the Australian mainland.
Finally, two months later in the middle of winter, schedules and winds aligned. A northerly wind of 16~20 knots made for a quick run and we covered the 30 nautical miles in under four hours. Winter northerlies in South Australia are not the warm wispy affairs of summer; they pack a punch and are frequently gale force.
The fun started when we arrived at Boxing Bay, which is exposed to the north. We’ve moored in northerlies many times before, but this time it took several attempts to hook the mooring. That was the first warning. I had never experienced such a high tide; the beach had completely vanished, and waves were pounding the base of the cliffs. That was the second warning. We stayed on board for about an hour debating whether to even go ashore, or to move. The boat was bouncing around on the mooring much more than usual. That was the third warning.
We were looking forward to our visit and were keen to disembark. I checked PredictWind one last time, and winds were forecast to strengthen overnight, but nothing too alarming. The mooring had been installed four years earlier, and inspected annually. This northerly seemed nothing special.
I spotted a distant corner of the beach where I thought it might be possible to get the dinghy ashore without getting pounded by the surf. By now, Arriba was bucking like a bronco and getting into the dinghy required careful timing. Our Border Collie, Haru, had the confidence to jump straight in, but the humans were considerably more circumspect and took a bit longer.
I gunned it for the corner of the beach and our well-executed landing would have made Jacques Cousteau proud. We quickly got off the dinghy and scrambled for dry land, dragging the dinghy behind us.
The trail to the house hugs the cliff tops along the western side of Boxing Bay. I cast my eyes backwards, and there was a lonely Arriba out on the bay, bouncing up and down. The movement seemed more violent than usual, but I dismissed the thought. Once inside the house, the bay seemed like another world and thoughts of the boat slipped from my mind.
At 2am, I awoke to a fierce gust that shook the entire house. Outside, conditions were deteriorating, with winds reaching 38 knots, far in excess of what had been predicted eight hours earlier.
As soon as the sun rose, I drove down to the bay to check on Arriba. I was horrified at the scene that awaited me. Arriba had dragged its mooring, which was still in one piece, until coming to rest on rocks on the western side of the bay. Arriba was still pointed out to sea, and although the port hull was on the rocks, the starboard hull was floating. Perhaps there was still a chance Arriba could motor off.
I raced down to the beach and climbed aboard easily; a little too easily it turns out, because the port hull was much lower than usual. There was a hole amidships in the port hull, which had straddled a rock. Arriba still had engine power, so I fired up the starboard motor and opened up the throttle. Arriba didn’t budge and was clearly not moving under her own steam.
I then contacted the local marine salvage company for assistance. Within an hour they’d organized a large tractor in an attempt to pull Arriba off the rocks. Unfortunately, that attempt failed too.
By then, the pounding conditions were taking a terrible toll and Arriba was in the process of breaking up on the rocks. Somehow, Arriba had swung around 180°, now exposing the port hull to the fury of the waves. By the afternoon, the port hull had completely broken off and was gone. This was the side of the boat that housed our cabin, resulting in the loss of all of our clothes, tools, fishing gear, and books. I managed to salvage only a few items, such as PFDs, that were stored up high in the closet.
As the tide came up, the saloon interior became awash, destroying the batteries and ruining everything that was less than 1m above bridgedeck height. Both engines were knocked completely out of the stern. Merri joined me and we focused on salvaging what we could from the drier starboard side, before rising waters and darkness forced us off the boat.
The following morning, two 20-ton excavators made their way across the rocks to Arriba, making a path as they went. One picked up the stern, the other the bow, and like a giant mechanical Pushmi-Pullyu, slowly moved Arriba up the beach onto my beachside property.
Arriba sat high and dry for several weeks longer, before being hauled away and broken up. Launched in 2007, Arriba started life as a charter boat in the Whitsunday Islands. Two years later, I purchased her and sailed her all over Australia (and beyond). It was a sad end to a vessel that had brought us so many cherished memories.
RIP Arriba.
OVER
PS Arriba is gone, but our sailing adventures continue at Lightning Sailing.
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