sydney to hobart yacht abandoned

Sydney to Hobart yacht race competitor Huntress ashore on Christmas Beach.(Twitter: Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania)

Race to salvage Huntress after Hobart competitor beached on Cape Barren Island

By Monte Bovill and James Dunlevie – ABC News

A yacht abandoned during the Sydney to Hobart yacht race has washed ashore on one of Tasmania’s most remote beaches after drifting for a week, with concerns for the area’s culture and environmental significance.

The crew of Huntress, a 12-metre cruiser, enjoyed “36 hours of absolute champagne sailing” during the 77th Sydney to Hobart race before conditions changed dramatically.

“We had 12 hours of very testing conditions on Tuesday night that unfortunately resulted in the loss of our rudder at 0700hrs Wednesday. While surfing a wave at 20 knots (boat speed), we heard a loud thud,” the crew wrote in an Instagram post.

“It became obvious that the rudder had sheared off when we saw it floating away in the distance.”

With some of the eight on board experiencing seasickness and authorities informing them a “tow would be too dangerous”, the “extremely difficult and heart-wrenching decision” was made to “leave Huntress floundering 80 nautical miles (148 kilometres) offshore”, the team posted on social media.

The crew were then taken aboard a police vessel and transferred to Flinders Island, where they said a salvage operation was “already being planned for her safe transfer to mainland Tasmania” on December 29.

Since then, Huntress has been drifting off Tasmania’s north-east coast without navigation lights or transmission of an Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal after the yacht’s batteries went flat.

It has now washed ashore on Christmas Beach on truwana/Cape Barren Island.

Marine and Safety Tasmania (MAST) first issued a warning to marine traffic on Tuesday, five days after the yacht was abandoned, alerting that Huntress was drifting 15 nautical miles off the Tasmanian mainland.

According to the MAST alert, an at-sea salvage attempt was due to take place — but before that could happen, the vessel had gone ashore.

In a now-deleted post, the boat’s owner said the team were “angry, devastated and at a complete loss as to how the hell it came to this, given she was floating around for a week now with ample opportunity to be towed to safety”.

Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania manager Rebecca Digney said there were serious concerns about the yacht breaking up.

“At the moment, the yacht appears to be intact, but we are concerned what should happen if that yacht were to break apart. It’s going to be hard to recover the vessel and keep it intact.”

She described Christmas Beach as a “very clean, pristine and remote place”.

“It’s an area frequented by the Aboriginal people that live on truwana/Cape Barren Island,” she said.

“The island is the only parcel of land in the whole of Tasmania to have a permanent, full-time Aboriginal population living on Aboriginal land.”

The area is only accessible by foot or by boat.

Salvage attempts will now be made at the weekend.

It is the second year Huntress has failed to finish the Sydney to Hobart.

In 2021, in its maiden race, Huntress retired from competition due to mainsail damage.

Click on the link below to see full ABC News report

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-06/sydney-to-hobart-huntress-beached-cape-barren-island/101830434

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Sydney to Hobart yacht washes up on remote island

Cultural and environmental concerns after a yacht washed up on a remote island in Tasmania. (Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania Twitter)

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Other ways to listen, huntress yacht has been washed ashore on a remote tasmanian beach on aboriginal land. there are cultural and environmental concerns the yacht will break up before it can be salvaged, due to the remoteness of its location. sbs news reporter aymen baghdadi speaks to vica bayley from the state's aboriginal land council who says there are concerns about the yacht breaking up and damaging the land., recommended for you.

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Vow to restore salvaged Syd-Hob yacht

The owners of a Sydney to Hobart yacht salvaged from a remote Tasmanian island after it was abandoned during the race have vowed to restore the vessel to its former glory.

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Huntress was recovered from Christmas Beach on Cape Barren Island in Bass Strait on Sunday, some 11 days after it ran into trouble.

The 40-foot yacht's rudder was sheared off after it hit an object on December 28 about 80 nautical miles east of Flinders Island. The boat's crew was rescued later in the day by water police.

Huntress, which was left to drift at sea before it beached last week, is now safely tied up in northern Tasmania.

"Receiving this news was simply a huge relief and the news we had been waiting to receive for several long days," a post on the boat's Instagram page read.

"Moving forward we will be working with our insurer to plan Huntress's repairs in restoring her to her former glory.

"This may take several months to complete but we cannot wait to get started!

"Finally, we wish to thank everyone for all the messages of support that we have received, it really has meant everything to us and has helped us keep going."

Following the salvage, the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania (ALCT) claimed the yacht should not have been removed from the beach, as it belonged to Indigenous people.

ALCT chairman Michael Mansell said there was an Aboriginal law on Cape Barren Island, also known as truwana, preventing the yacht from being removed unless a portion of its value was paid or ownership was given to the Indigenous population.

The ALCT has reportedly sent a letter to the yacht's owners and insurers requesting a formal meeting.

Total Dive Solutions, a company involved in salvaging Huntress, said Indigenous representatives provided "permission and local site knowledge" during the operation.

Huntress also failed to complete the Sydney to Hobart race in 2021 when it was forced to retire with mainsail damage.

Australian Associated Press

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Six abandon ship as Sydney to Hobart yacht sinks off Tasmanian coast

• Chantal Borciani

Six people rescued from the water during a dramatic rescue off the Tasmanian coast as Hollywood Boulevard sinks on return from the Sydney to Hobart race

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Six people have been winched to safety from a yacht returning from the Sydney to Hobart race after it sank in freezing waters off Flinders Island, northeast of Tasmania.

The 16m Hollywood Boulevard was heading back to NSW, having placed ninth in the Sydney to Hobart race, when the accident happened about 11am on 14 January.

The 16m Hollywood Boulevard was returning to its home port in New South Wales after placing ninth in the Sydney to Hobart race when it began to take on water. The crew made a Mayday call and were forced to abandon ship.

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Sydney-Hobart yacht washes up on island

A yacht abandoned at sea after suffering damage in the Sydney to Hobart race has washed up on a remote Tasmanian island, where a salvage mission will be attempted.

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Water police rescued the crew of Huntress on December 28 after the 40-foot vessel struck an unidentified object that sheared off part of its rudder.

The yacht was left to drift at sea and has washed up near Christmas Beach on Cape Barren Island in Bass Strait.

Marine and Safety Tasmania earlier this week issued an alert saying the yacht was 15 nautical miles off the state's northeast coast and salvage operations were expected to start on Wednesday.

It confirmed on Wednesday the yacht had beached on Cape Barren Island and salvage attempts would be made on Saturday.

A spokesman for Marine and Safety Tasmania said the salvage operation was a matter for the yacht's owners and insurers.

The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania posted images on social media of the vessel washed ashore.

"We're hoping salvage is swift, safe and successful as she poses a risk (to) remote and pristine country," the organisation said.

Huntress was forced to retire from the Sydney to Hobart race after setting off from the NSW capital on Boxing Day.

Skipper and owner Victoria Logan and her seven crewmates suffered a mishap 80 nautical miles east of Flinders Island on the morning of December 28.

She told AAP last week she was downstairs when the yacht's driver, her partner Brent, felt a thud through the steering as the vessel was riding a wave.

"The wheel got ripped out of his hand and the boat started breaching violently. It took a few minutes to work out, but we realised we lost steerage," she said.

"We realised the rudder had sheared off and we could see it floating next to the boat, off into the distance."

Logan said Huntress likely hit a sunfish. The yacht attempted the Sydney to Hobart in 2021 but failed to finish because of mainsail damage.

Logan has been contacted for comment.

Australian Associated Press

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Vow to restore salvaged Syd-Hob yacht

The owners of a Sydney to Hobart yacht salvaged from a remote Tasmanian island after it was abandoned during the race have vowed to restore the vessel to its former glory.

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Huntress was recovered from Christmas Beach on Cape Barren Island in Bass Strait on Sunday, some 11 days after it ran into trouble.

The 40-foot yacht's rudder was sheared off after it hit an object on December 28 about 80 nautical miles east of Flinders Island. The boat's crew was rescued later in the day by water police.

Huntress, which was left to drift at sea before it beached last week, is now safely tied up in northern Tasmania.

"Receiving this news was simply a huge relief and the news we had been waiting to receive for several long days," a post on the boat's Instagram page read.

"Moving forward we will be working with our insurer to plan Huntress's repairs in restoring her to her former glory.

"This may take several months to complete but we cannot wait to get started!

"Finally, we wish to thank everyone for all the messages of support that we have received, it really has meant everything to us and has helped us keep going."

Following the salvage, the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania (ALCT) claimed the yacht should not have been removed from the beach, as it belonged to Indigenous people.

ALCT chairman Michael Mansell said there was an Aboriginal law on Cape Barren Island, also known as truwana, preventing the yacht from being removed unless a portion of its value was paid or ownership was given to the Indigenous population.

The ALCT has reportedly sent a letter to the yacht's owners and insurers requesting a formal meeting.

Total Dive Solutions, a company involved in salvaging Huntress, said Indigenous representatives provided "permission and local site knowledge" during the operation.

Huntress also failed to complete the Sydney to Hobart race in 2021 when it was forced to retire with mainsail damage.

Australian Associated Press

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Sydney-Hobart yacht washes up on island

A yacht abandoned at sea after suffering damage in the Sydney to Hobart race has washed up on a remote Tasmanian island, where a salvage mission will be attempted.

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Water police rescued the crew of Huntress on December 28 after the 40-foot vessel struck an unidentified object that sheared off part of its rudder.

The yacht was left to drift at sea and has washed up near Christmas Beach on Cape Barren Island in Bass Strait.

Marine and Safety Tasmania earlier this week issued an alert saying the yacht was 15 nautical miles off the state's northeast coast and salvage operations were expected to start on Wednesday.

It confirmed on Wednesday the yacht had beached on Cape Barren Island and salvage attempts would be made on Saturday.

A spokesman for Marine and Safety Tasmania said the salvage operation was a matter for the yacht's owners and insurers.

The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania posted images on social media of the vessel washed ashore.

"We're hoping salvage is swift, safe and successful as she poses a risk (to) remote and pristine country," the organisation said.

Huntress was forced to retire from the Sydney to Hobart race after setting off from the NSW capital on Boxing Day.

Skipper and owner Victoria Logan and her seven crewmates suffered a mishap 80 nautical miles east of Flinders Island on the morning of December 28.

She told AAP last week she was downstairs when the yacht's driver, her partner Brent, felt a thud through the steering as the vessel was riding a wave.

"The wheel got ripped out of his hand and the boat started breaching violently. It took a few minutes to work out, but we realised we lost steerage," she said.

"We realised the rudder had sheared off and we could see it floating next to the boat, off into the distance."

Logan said Huntress likely hit a sunfish. The yacht attempted the Sydney to Hobart in 2021 but failed to finish because of mainsail damage.

Logan has been contacted for comment.

Australian Associated Press

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• F1 Australian Grand Prix

Sydney to Hobart 1998 tragedy, 20 years on: Sword of Orion skipper Rob Kothe speaks

Rob Kothe could not have known it at the time, but safety was so close. Another hour of ploughing south on Bass Strait through the hellish storm of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart, and conditions would have eased off.

But having measured winds of 90 knots (167km/h), Kothe decided that it was time to retire from the race and pointed his boat - Sword of Orion, a Reichel-Pugh 44 - towards Melbourne. He thought it was the best chance of safe passage out of the chaotic low-pressure system, the worst the famous race had ever seen.

Kothe broke the race rules of the time by informing other boats of the extreme winds via radio, prompting 30-40 vessels to retire and seek port in Eden on the NSW South Coast.

“I thought, ‘People are going to die if they go into this’,” Kothe told Wide World of Sports . “I was disinterested in the result.”

Kothe and his crew had been well-placed in the race and therefore, were well past the safe haven of Eden. Charting north-west in an attempt to clear the storm, they were actually headed into more trouble; the extreme weather system was wrapping around the Victorian coast, and Sword sailed that way with mountainous waves to her back and side.

Sailors were given an ominous weather forecast before the race, though not to the catastrophic proportions that eventuated. Forecasts were Sydney-centric, Kothe said, rather than drawing far more accurate information from Victoria and Bass Strait readings. And there was precious little information during the race, per the rules. Boats could not relay weather observations, only their position.

“We were flying blind,” said Kothe, who was contesting just his second Hobart and had only owned the Sword since May.

At the yacht’s helm as it turned back was Glyn Charles, a 33-year-old British sailor who finished 11 th in the Star class at Atlanta 1996. He was a well-liked guy whom Kothe had met only a month before, as Charles prepared in Sydney for the 2000 Olympics.

A sailor who preferred smaller boats and reportedly did not much like ocean racing, Charles was one of two men on deck when the Sword was pounded by a 40-foot wave. It dropped down the face and completed a full 360-degree roll, like a tumbling barrel. Steering was lost.

After the boat snap-rolled, it was left to the sailor who had been spotting for Charles, Darren Senogles, to scream: ‘Man overboard!’

It is believed that Charles was hit by the boom, suffering serious injuries. The coroner later concluded that his safety harness also failed. He was in the water, without a life jacket and weighed down by wet weather gear and boots. He would never leave.

Kothe had been at the navigation station and was thrown upside down in the air. He took out the companionway steps with his head and injured his leg, landing beneath sails and other debris as 18 inches of water filled the boat. He needed other crew members to help free him, before they realised something was terribly wrong on deck.

“It was chaos, but everyone focused on the man overboard,” Kothe said.

“Darren Senogles went to put a rope around himself to dive in the water [to swim after Charles]. But the waves were so high and the wind was so strong that we were just blown away. Within 10 seconds, we were too far apart to reach him.”

All they could do was watch helplessly Charles drift away until he was out of sight. His body was never recovered. Kothe thinks of him often.

“I do. You think, ‘What could I have done differently?’” Kothe said.

“Obviously I shouldn’t have turned back but with the information I had, it seemed like the best decision. It totally wasn’t.”

There was no time to reflect on that call at the time, or to grieve for Charles. The motor was gone. The mast was wrapped around the boat; the tip up the side, the base inside, threatening to skewer the stricken vessel.

“As soon as Glyn had disappeared from sight, the focus turned to cutting away the rig to stop the boat being hole-punched and us all drowning,” Kothe said.

“People were in shock. They realised Glyn was gone. But there were many times through the night where we thought we were all gone.”

In those conditions, even getting rescued was extremely dangerous. A Navy Sea King helicopter reportedly spent two hours searching for the Sword before it was located.

Two sailors were rescued before a third – Steve Kulmar, a veteran on his 17 th Hobart – entered the water. Wearing a heavy kapok ‘Mae West’-style life jacket, Kulmar twice fell out of the harness connected to the helicopter winch and spent an exhausting half-hour in the water until he was found by a frogman, dispatched because the chopper was running low on fuel.

Kulmar’s crew mates thought he was dead, meeting the same fate as Charles.

“People were having awful trouble getting up to the helicopters,” Kothe said.

“Steve Kulmar was out of contact with our boat and the helicopter for three or four minutes. We thought he was gone. They actually did put a swimmer in the water, and that’s the only way they got him.”

The rest of the crew had to wait until first light, about 6am, for their ticket out. Conditions remained horrendous.

“I was standing in the belly of the boat trying to figure out why the helicopter was going up and down, and up and down. Of course, it was holding stationary – we were going up and down,” Kothe said.

The chopper spotlight gave Kothe a look at his boat. It had been ruined by the storm.

“The boat was just slowly twisting and tearing,” Kothe said.

“When we left the area, I had my eye on the boat and lost sight of it after about 15 seconds, because it was white and so were all the wave tops.

“The following day, they sent out a fishing boat to try and find it. It was never found. It just tore apart.”

Marc Pavillard was the navy chopper pilot who saved the remainder of the crew. One moment is burned in his mind.

“I’ll never ever forget the faces of the Sword crew as we abruptly broke clear of the storm on the way home,’’ he told the Daily Telegraph .

“It was as if this thick curtain had just been opened into the most magnificent blue sky day you have ever seen.

“I was shocked by it. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. I got it because they had been in hell for a couple of days and just on the other side, within their reach, was this realisation of paradise.’’

That the Sword’s crew was rescued after remaining in the relative safety of their boat was a blessing. Three crew members of another yacht – John Dean, James Lawler and Michael Bannister, of Winston Churchill – drowned after leaving their vessel on a life raft.

Two other sailors – Bruce Raymond Guy and Phillip Charles Skeggs, of Business Post Naiad – died of a heart attack and drowning, respectively.

Six sailors died. Fifty-five had to be rescued. Five boats sank and seven were abandoned. Just 44 of 115 yachts finished the race.

The comfort that Kothe takes from the heartbreaking race is the dramatic changes that happened immediately afterwards, and have happened ever since.

 A leading sailing journalist, Kothe just wrote his recollection of the ’98 race for Yachts and Yachting , outlining the extensive changes made after coronial recommendations and at the sport’s own initiative.

Key among them is the vastly different attitude towards sharing weather information.

“There’s been enormous changes. There were immediate changes for the ’99 Hobart,” said Kothe, who sailed a new Sword of Orion the following year.

“The most obvious one was that they changed the rule from the situation where there was no outside help on information about weather, to a compulsory situation (of weather information sharing).

“The whole scene grew up. People realised that lives were at stake in this thing and it was time to not be kids. That continued for quite a while.

“They didn’t die in vain. Because it forced a total rethink.

“I think about it a lot but I’m just cheered by the lessons learned. They haven’t just applied to people in that race, they’ve applied to people in other races, and cruising people. The advances in safety have helped fishermen, cruising sailors, commercial sailors … everybody. The lessons learned from that race have saved many lives.

“That’s the thing that I said to Glyn’s family, and say to everybody: they didn’t die in vain.”

Bill Sykes, who raced on Kendall Airways in ’98 and will contest his 30 th Hobart this year, said the loss of Charles weighed heavily on his fellow sailors.

“That was so sad. Such a young person. He was just a young kid,” he told Wide World of Sports .

“Most of us have come from smaller boats and we work up into the bigger boat. He was doing the same things we’ve all done and it just so happened that this wasn’t his race. It’s so sad. Such a nice kid.”

But the veteran sailor agreed that the safety advancements in sailing after the ’98 race had been remarkable.

“The sport’s much safer now than it ever has been,” Sykes said. “It changed every culture for racing.”

Kendall Airways was a 36-footer, the smallest boat Sykes has ever raced the Hobart on; certainly smaller than famed yacht Brindabella, on which he’d taken line honours the previous year. A mate with whom Sykes did his first-ever Hobart, Gary Eiszelle, talked him into making the voyage on the timber vessel.

Yet unlike the ill-fated Sword, Kendall Airways cleared the most dangerous weather and actually turned around to assist with search and rescue.

Sykes said the conditions were extreme.

“It was a shock to go through something like that,” he said.

“There are things you don’t remember, and then you remember what’s gone on in the race days later. We sailed through a pod of pilot whales, about 30 or 40. We nearly hit them, we were right in the middle of them. I didn’t remember that until I got back a couple of days later. It was just traumatic.

 “When you’re involved in a traumatic event … you just don’t know what’s going on. It’s the middle of the night and there’s 40-foot waves coming at you, you could hear the roll of the little waves. There’s no wind down the bottom but there’s so much wind at the top. You do that for 24 hours, longer than that I think.

“That night-time stuff … you think about a lot of things.”

The thing that stuck in Sykes’ mind, amid everything else, was a freakish piece of poise and skill from Kendall Airways owner Jeff Cordell. A CSIRO technician, Cordell found that the yacht’s radio had come to grief and somehow managed to fix it as the storm raged around him.

“I’ve seen some people do some pretty smart things but in the middle of the race ... he soldered the radio back together again. And we helped with some of the coordination in the search and rescues,” Sykes said.

“This was in a boat pounding through in the middle of the night, headlight torches, soldering a radio back together. Pitch black, 40-50-foot waves smashing the boat and here he is soldering a radio back together. And here it is booming straight back out after that. Unbelievable. That’s probably the most vivid thing in my memory.”

The Kendall Airways crew had a simple mantra to stick to.

“It was a Tasmanian boat – it had to go home. That was the saying on the boat,” Sykes recalled.

In Hobart, the race’s tight-knit community was in deep shock. A memorial service was held. Apart from racing against Charles, Sykes knew Bannister from around the Manly area. Those lost sailors will never be forgotten and the pain of their loss remains 20 years on.

Their legacy to the race is that no more sailors need die as they did.

• sydney to hobart yacht race

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Green Point beach near Yamba littered with debris after abandoned boat runs aground

A remote beach near Yamba on the New South Wales north coast is littered with debris and diesel after a boat ran aground and was smashed to pieces in the surf overnight.

Witnesses said the boat was abandoned by its occupants as they were attempting to cross the Clarence River bar around lunchtime on Monday. 

NSW Road and Maritime said the occupants were evacuated from the vessel by a NSW Marine Rescue crew.

Angourie resident Oli Coe said he later saw the vessel adrift about 2 kilometres offshore.

He watched the boat throughout the day and at one point saw another vessel alongside it.

He said someone boarded vessel and put out its anchor.

"As the wind got up through the rest of the afternoon, we watched the boat drifting and dragging on its anchor and eventually it just dragged way too far and ended up on the beach," Mr Coe said.

At one stage Mr Coe and two friends used jetskis to get out to the boat to see if they could do anything to help.

He said he could not understand why it was not salvaged before it ran aground near Green Point.

"There was definitely some damage to the boat but it was in perfectly good condition [before that]," Mr Coe said.

Clean-up concerns

Locals spent Tuesday morning on the beach, dragging piles of debris above the high tide mark in a bid to ensure it is not taken back out to sea with the next high tide on Tuesday evening. 

Angourie resident Kim Wood said the usually pristine beach at Green Point looked like a "rubbish dump".

"I'm looking at kilometres of debris," she said.

"There is timber, there is oil cans, jerry cans full of diesel, so much plastic, and everything is soaked in diesel.

"You can still see all debris in the ocean."

Ms Wood said the area was home to a wide range of birdlife including oyster catchers and curlews.

Too dangerous to tow

NSW Maritime said the boat was deemed too dangerous for authorities to board or tow.

Senior boating safety officer Bret Ryan said authorities needed to put safety first.

"Marine Rescue revisited the boat several times on Monday, and eventually the Water Police came from Coffs Harbour," Mr Ryan said.

"They came to the same conclusion that it was too dangerous."

"At that point the vessel was secure and the hope was it would remain in that position but unfortunately that didn't happen."

Mr Ryan said the main hazard on the beach was from any sharp objects that might remain buried in the sand.

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**Charles Devanneaux (second from right) with crew of LENNY** Although French, with a full French crew, Charles Devanneaux represented the USA where he lives.

PHOTOS | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Official Prizegiving

PHOTOS | Day 5 Morning - Tasman Island and Storm Bay

PHOTOS | Day 5 and Day 6 finishers

PHOTOS | Official Presentation of Tattersall Cup and Rolex Timepiece to the Overall Winner

VIDEO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race - Rolex Daily Video Summary

VIDEO | Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 2023

VIDEO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Official Prizegiving

VIDEO | Race Update - 31 December Morning

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 10

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 9

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 8

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 7

AUDIO | 2023 Rolex Sydney Hobart Sked 6

• Line Honours

Full Standings available approximately three hours after the start.

OFFICIAL ROLEX SYDNEY HOBART MERCHANDISE

Shop the official clothing range of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in person at the Club in New South Head Road, Darling Point or online below.  

From casual to technical clothing, there is something for all occasions. Be quick as stock is limited!

• Rugby union

Sydney to Hobart yacht race

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Black Jack wins with slowest time since 2004 

Black Jack claims Sydney to Hobart victory in slowest race since 2004

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Covid-19 outbreak forces cancellation of Sydney to Hobart yacht race

• Australia sport