We always knew leaving Port Phillip bay was going to interesting and it certainly did not disappoint. Everything from fast running conditions to flat calm in the bay before a stiff 20 knot SW’ly made it into the bay leaving us all beating through the heads in a very tough sea state.

It seems like a long time since we have been offshore in Ericsson but it’s an instantly familiar feeling. Reaching along in thirty knots of wind with muffled shouts from the boys on deck, whilst trying desperately hard to focus on the computer screens in front of me without smashing my head into the winch and hydraulic parts that I share my nav station with.

The feeling is of ‘run away’ speed, as we hurtle down each wave before spearing our way through the bottom of the wave. You feel the impact a second or so before the solid water smashes into the cockpit and finds its way inside the boat through the tiniest of openings. Fittings that are tested watertight on the shore always seem to leak out here in these conditions; at least its only Bass Strait and not the southern ocean where the water is just above freezing.

It’s looking like a fast trip, but it’s like an inverse law that the
faster you get there the harder it is and somehow whatever the conditions each leg will take everything that you can give.

Steve Hayles - navigator

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