Not quite, but sounds dramatic and hopefully that’s never the situation we have to deal with. We departed Lizard Island for the 300nm leg to The Adolphus Island Group just north of Cape York and settled back into our overnight pattern of sailing downwind, in the shipping channel, dodging oncoming cargo ships and gybing (zig-zagging) our way down wind to stay clear of hundreds of reefs and rocks (mostly submerged).

The night was going well when the call came over the radio around 4am from Phil on Salt Lines. “We have water leaking into the bilge around the prop shaft and have discovered the shaft (that had been turning freely while sailing) has overheated badly. We had to pour three buckets of cold water onto it, before the steam stopped rising.”

A further discussion followed, with Phil confirming he had slowed the boat and was working on a plan for a refuge port. I jumped onto the Navionics charts and confirmed our location 6nm ahead of Salt Lines and just north of Cape Melville. Initially Bathurst Bay looked like an option, but I was concerned the SE swell would just roll around the headland and along the beach, making it very rolly. 6nm west of our location was Flinders Island and Stanley Island and some quick research using the charts and location guides, confirmed that the Owen Channel between the two islands, would be a sheltered place to anchor and assess the damage.

As we were not aware of the cause of the issues on Salt Lines, Sharon suggested we slow right down to enable Salt Lines to catch up with us. If they needed emergency assistance, we needed to be close by. By 5:30am we entered Fly Channel, dropped sails and then circled slowly behind the Flinders Island headland. Salt Lines anchored and then we set up lines and fenders on our starboard side, to enable us to raft up alongside them and hang off the single anchor.

We did not now the waters and with crocodiles being a risk, the last thing I wanted to do was put the RIB in the water to get between the two yachts. The Salt Lines crew were happy to see us and anytime you have water leaking into you hull or smoke from overheating, its an anxiety causing experience. As Salt Lines is posting the detail on this in their blog, I’ll avoid repeating it here. After 3 hours of working as a team of four, we were able to complete repairs and change the leaking prop shaft seal.

*Departing the Owen Channel to head north again*

The realities of sailing, when you do 20,000nm plus each year, is that there are always parts of the boat at various stages of service, upgrade and replacement. That’s just sailing and you can’t prevent every issue that occurs. What you can do though, is carry the tools, manuals, spare parts and experienced crew to be able to deal with repairs and get safely to the next port. The reason we now sail with two yachts on the more remote expeditions is for for support and safety.

This has been beneficial many times in the last few months and the moral support helps as well. It was after midday that we put up sails and headed north again. This time we hoisted more sail and went to a mainsail with 1 reef and the jib. The forecast was 16-20, gusting 25, so we felt confident to push Silver Fern along a little faster.

With 220nm to go to Cape York, we rolled into another night of reef and cargo ship dodging as we worked our way up the shipping channel. With the Great Barrier Reef getting closer to the coast the further north you go, sometimes the shipping channel is bordered by submerged reefs on both sides and if you have to combine the gybe with a cargo ship coming through in the middle of it all, it gets kind of hairy.

Our crew have grown into their roles as watch captains and literally take responsibility for night navigation and keeping us safe from harm. A constant vigil is required with advance warning of 15 minutes to get everyone set up for a gybe. The metres count down quickly when you are headed for a reef at 8-9 knots.

Join the crew for a sailing adventure

Fire in the hole!

The top of the country

Exploring Lizard Island