If you're new here welcome and thanks for joining our sailing crew. Here's the quick rundown. I'm Kristina
and this is John. Sick of covid lockdowns I quit my job, packed up our Melbourne apartment and
with little sailing experience, we purchased our first yacht, Tucana. Our dream is to sail Tucana
all the way up to Australia's ocean jewel, the Great Barrier Reef. We've made it, sort
of halfway there. We're currently in Coffs Harbour where things are about to get, weird.
The day started like any other day,
but this was no ordinary day. I did pan, pan, pan first, and got no response.
John and I were just chilling at the marina in Coffs Harbour.
"Smells good." Next minute, hey john, marine rescue Coffs Harbour responding to a 47-foot Bavaria that
has been dismasted. Two people on board. That's not far away from here hey. About an hour or
two later, we looked up and a severely damaged vessel pulled up next to us. John can you tell
me what's just happened. We saw Sabu pulling up next to us, helped it with its lines and realised
it had been in a significant incident. And on board behind the helm was Peter,
"Hello." He was in shock but after a couple of days he sat down with us and told us his story.
No warning, bang!
But to get the full scope of this really quite freaky story, we have to go back. Way back.
Now this was John and I on the same boat Sabu three months prior.
She was a beauty. A Bavaria Ocean 47, up for sale and on our short list of boats to inspect.
Now we saw the ad online, we called the owner, we flew to Brisbane and even took this footage
as we did a walkthrough of it in Brisbane but as it turned out
the boat just wasn't for us and we moved on and we later purchased Tucana
but for Peter Sabu was his dreamboat that he'd been searching for, for years.
I mean he just moved on from his marriage and he planned to charter the yacht in Thailand.
Yes my dream to travel and it's my home.
Peter had only owned Sabu for a few weeks. He was so excited to sail her from Brisbane to his hometown in Sydney.
The biggest thing that shattered me was I've only had the boat three three weeks and then this.
His rigging just gave way. I had fifty percent of a hundred and forty percent genoa and third
reef on the main. So well within the boat well within me. No warning. My mate was laying on the
on the couch because he was crook and he had his head probably that far away from it when it let go.
And no warning. BANG! I just turned around I just saw this... going like that. Gone. S*#T. I saw the mask over the side
and everything stopped.
Had no choice but to cut it loose. What did you think in that moment?
sH%@ing myself. Yeah, it's frightening. It's frightening. Of all the births at Coffs Harbour marina it was just
incredible that Peter was allocated a spot right next to us. We were in shock.
What are the chances that it's pulled up right next to us?
John actually tried to alert the previous owner of the boat. I'm just messaging the other the old owner of Sabu.
Obviously we had his phone number from when we were dealing with him
but we later found out sadly he had since passed away.
What actually happened was the threaded bolt that goes down into the chain plate where the
threaded bar goes through the chain plate it, actually snapped so and that was caused from
water leakage even though it was stainless. It still corroded, so it's pulled the rod straight
out through the top of the deck, so I've got a big hole in the deck now. Pulled the window out.
Massive amount of damage.
How did you go, you hear these stories of people when this happens, having like real difficulties getting rid of the rig.
I was lucky. I was lucky, um in hindsight I will buy
a decent set of bolt cutters. That is a must. I was lucky enough to pull the pins out.
I was lucky enough to use pair of pliers. Never bend your split pins around all the way
you just have to open them up. Yeah. Open them up. They won't come out. It's funny our
rigger said the same thing. In this instance they were done correctly and all I did was
put the pliers on, crimped it up, pulled it out and knocked the pin back out with a
pin punch and a hammer.
And what would have happened if you couldn't have got them out?
I probably would have hulled the boat. The bottom of the mast was bobbing up and I was in a two meter swell
and it was rolling and it was coming up and hitting the gunnels.
So there's a high risk of it punching a hole through the side of the hull.
How long did it take to clear the mast and everything?
This right side that went and then I had the forestay,
the two forestays on the genoa and the staysail.
They were laying over, everything was laying over. They came out pretty easy,
and the only one I had hassle was, was on the port side where it went over. Okay.
Bent the rods over. I had a really hard time punching the pin out, so and in the rolling swell
I had got no guardrails so no place to put my feet, so I was in between swells when it comes back up I was having a go
and then having to hang on, so yeah it's was... just deal with it. You don't have a choice
And when you let go of that last pain and it all just sort of went?
It was gone and so was dollars.
It would have been a relief though. I went, oh my gosh, S%$# it's gone.
Did it make a hole in the hull? No, just where it ripped out the rod
out of the upper deck. That's it.
Do you ever think as well like wow, i'm pretty lucky that I've walked away my mate walked away yes unscathed.
Was there a chance there that you could have been injured?
Oh yeah, the boom, the boom was crushing on the bimini, I was lucky that the bimini's the stainless
is 25 mil stainless so it's good solid stainless and that kept the the boom off um so i could have some control get the controls and
and but that collapsed down it was getting lower and lower with every swell oh yeah it was getting
low and lower and uh we're just lucky that no one got hurt thought i might lose some fingers
yeah did you really um getting the pins out and stuff so as the boat rolled and rocked it was
knuckling over the knuckles were going over and over so because you did all this before rescue
teams even got to you as well i turned around turned the rescue teams around oh really the
quickest i could have got was an hour and a half but i did send out a mayday oh did you was that
your first may day ever yeah i did pan pan pan first and got no response so i did do the mayday
and uh also called him on on the telephone yeah so what do you what did you say you're like hi
i just looked up google um marine rescue cough harbour hello yeah yeah hello this is cebu
i've just been de-mustard can you come out oh yeah yeah and then everything kicked in what a story
oh yeah that's in the end of the left to tell yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly
and the best thing about it i suppose was that it's insured i'm sure a lot of people would be
please people i'm sure you'll vote yeah yeah and ending on a positive um people might be
able to look out for you soon in thailand or in sydney which would be exciting yeah yeah
it'll be pretty cool still yeah that's awesome it's awesome thanks peter for telling a story
despite everything peter had been through he insisted on getting up early the next day
to help us with our lines good morning good day we are about to leave coffs harbour and head to
the gold coast it's going to be a 24 sale you sleep well i slept well how'd you go babe good
that's good are you ready to rock and roll sure am while we were stuck here in coffs harbour due to
covered restrictions we were grateful for the people we had met here because harbour marina
has lent us their manual ute we haven't driven a car to a while we were able to get a heap of
boat jobs done and our fridges were finally full of nourishing foods for our next passage
i was just wondering if we could log on with you guys please there was just one last thing to do
that was to say goodbye to our new friend peter who blasted his sound system with a farewell
tune as we were leaving the marina he was even looking out for us screaming out
vendors thanks pete we ended up spending 10 days in coffs harbour
obviously because we weren't able to get into queensland until we'd spent 14 days outside of
sydney so that is what we did and now we have this 24-hour sale to the gold coast
coming up next yes we were in for a long and emotional night
make sure you hit that subscribe button to join our adventure north
and we'll go through the heads at around 6am in the morning
i guess we sort of felt like a bit of a lack of connection to cebu because we
had seen it you know like we've been on board and we it's a small world yeah