Mate from the boat club was gunna contact me Friday for moving the boats down the river to a safer zone. Didn't hear from him so thought everything ok. Found out later he ran into some problems, one of which was mobile and landlines not working. Friday just after lunch I went down to the river and where I had easily driven in Thursday arvo, the river had broken its banks and I couldn't get within 200 metres of it. Not good. Unbelievable rise in level.
Many boats had gone. Some tied up along edge. Some bow down stern up as rising water was more than the mooring chain could handle. Windchaser was like that. That, the speed of the water and the huge amount of weed and logs coming down knotted my guts.
Some SMS came through, my mate was having dramas out on the water and he couldn't help me. My other fisho mate I couldn't contact so no way to get out to Windchaser. At the boat club a bloke was putting a forward-control tinny in and after a chat he agreed to take me out to Windchaser.
The speed of the water was scarey. Jumped on Windchaser and the fella went on to work on his boat pulled into the trees. In the cabin, water was half-way up to my knees. The cockpit drains had blocked, again, and so rainwater had poured into the cabin. I started pumping.
With some of the water out, I climbed up to the cockpit, lowered the motor, conected the fuel tank I had brought out and started the motor just to get in going. Up the front there was no way I could loosen the rope, it was a spliced loop around the cleat. It needed to be cut and I had my swiss army knife with me. Cutting it would mean going down the river before I was ready. I had not organised anyone to come and get me and without phone or radio I was not about to set off.
Got some rope, 8 metres, clove hitch and half hitches in front of the spliced loop. Since the rope widened at the splice I hoped the hitches would not slide off. Wrapped the rope around the mast winch, cut through the loop, released rope via the winch until the bow had come up and seemed right, went back to keep pumping.
With bilge half empty I left it to work on keeping the mooring line free of logs and weed. Took a bit of doing. A 35 foot steel boat slide past me with its mooring dragging. Glad I didn't need to pole that off. After an hour of that, the fella who took me out motored over. He agreed to pick me up from down river where most of the others had gone.
Released the mooring and motored down, trying to avoid the weed and logs as much as possible. Boat spinning in some currents. Looking at the river it seemed slow but looking across the banks or looking at the few remaining moored boats it was scarey as the water was racing.
Down the river a few km where the other boats were, I turned up river and reved motor almost flat out, I was just making headway. That would be about 7 knots. Anchored and was picked up. Sheesh!
Today I went down with my mate from the club to move his and another boat. A few boats were having problems and we took one guy along whose boat had broken free. Chased it down river, he got on board in the raging flood, other tinnies came out from other boats and there was a scramble to get it out of the way of a moored trimaran. Just managed it.
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The pic does not show how the sailing boat was barrelling along at about 8 knots straight at the tri. The dinghy on the left had put a rope on and was pulling and the bigger tinny with the guy in fluro was circling around and just pushing directly with his tinny. The guy standing on the yacht is the owner and we chucked him on board only about 30 seconds before this pic. Lots of drama and happening really quickly. Worked out okay.
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Windchaser is doing well. Compared to yesterday there is almost no weed but still logs and trees coming down, big round bales of hay. Cattle came down yesterday, trying to swim to safety. I could have anchored closer in to the right but yesterday there was more boats there, which have now gone down to even better spots.
Lots of safety issues with my story. One is that the cockpit drains had been something I had flagged as a problem and I have just got the fittings to fix it. The huge amount of rain certainly highlighted the problem. Another is that if I had used chain on my mooring, unless I had a bolt cutter I would not have been able to release it. While I was caught out with some things, having the motor ready to go with charged battery etc made it easy to move. Talk about excitment. I just want a little less of it after the last two days trips on the river.
