Year One
Date: 24/1/2008
Weather: 22 degrees but sunny
Location: Hobart, Tasmania - The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania
Author: Kylie

Hi everyone, sorry for not writing in ages. Yes we are safe and have arrived in Hobart! Actually we got in on Saturday night but have been busy being tourists the last few days. More about that later...

East Boyd Bay

We left Eden last Thursday morning along with quite a number of other yachts who had also been waiting for a weather period to head to East Coast Tassie, West Coast Tassie, Melbourne or Lakes Entrance. We were the second boat to leave Two Fold Bay and hoisted our sails once clear of the shipping wall. The wind settled in from the SE at around 10-15 knots shortly after we passed Ben Boyd Tower. As we tacked down the coast the other southward bound yachts all clearly with much larger budgets then ours began one-by-one to motor sail past us and over the horizon. We worked the whole way to Gabo Island at which point the wind swung east and we entered Bass Strait on a two sail reach. Although the seas in Bass Strait were not large they were very confused coming from at least three different directions at once.

Dolphins shortley after leaving Eden


We witnessed a beautiful sunset over the water and finally caught the first boat shortly after dark. Whilst crossing Bass Strait it became clear that we would be arriving at our planned destination St Helens at around 3am in complete darkness so we changed our destination, now aiming for Schouten Passage near Freycinet. Peter had little power naps during the night whilst doing horizon and sail checks every 15 minutes. We swapped over at around 4am. Although we were now passing Flinders Island I could not see the coast as the weather was overcast. We sat inside most of the day reading and watching some television, we could get SBS, Win/NBN, Seven and could see another channel but it had no audio.

Our GPS screen and track

Along the coast we were in contact with Bryn at Tamar Sea Rescue, the nicest station we have talked to so far! He gave us a weather forecast and we again changed our plans. Our initial plan had been to stop at St Helens/Schouten Passage and get a good nights sleep then continue onto Hobart so we could arrive in time for a briefing on Sunday evening for the cruise in company we are joining. However there was a 20-30+ knot southerly front predicted for Sunday morning and we decided it would be best if we were in Hobart prior to this so we continued straight on.

Friday night we split the watch more evenly then lazed around all day Saturday watching season two of Greys Anatomy on DVD. The first land we saw was Hippolyte Rock.

At 5.00pm we were met and escorted by a pod of 6 dolphins to Tasman Island. Around 5.30pm we gybed and rounded Tasman Island and then were blasted with 30+ knots. I hand steered as Peter took the mainsail down. At some point here we hit a wind gust of 45.1 knots! We reached across to Storm Bay with half a jib up. As we came up Storm Bay the wind eased enough to sail with a reefed main and full jib. We finally anchored at midnight on Saturday near Lindisfarne.

Trip Statistics
Highest wind speed: 45.1 knots
Total distance travelled: 398nm
Time: 60hours
Average Speed: 6.6knots
Wildlife sighted: Dolphins, Albatross, Petrels