Sailing Tasmania’s East Coast & across Bass Strait - in Winter: EP 5 Bass Strait Crossing Part 1
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ส.ค. 2023
- Episode 5: Bass Strait Crossing Part 1 - St Helens to Cape Barren Island, across Banks Strait
This episode of the journey covers the day we were finally able to leave St Helens and begin our crossing of Bass Strait. Unfortunately the weather window to get to Eden was really narrow so we were going to have to high-tail it to make it before the northerlies returned. The weather forecast was for windier and rougher conditions that we would have liked, but it looked doable. Anyway, it was the only window we were going to get for the foreseeable future, so we decided to take it.
Our sail plan was to make the crossing of Bass Strait in two stages. The first stage, documented in this episode, was a long day sail across the notorious Banks Strait, to overnight at remote Cape Barren Island, before continuing on non-stop the following two days.
As expected, the sail across Banks Strait was pretty rough. This Strait is considered by locals to be potentially worse than Bass Strait, of which it is a part. It lies between the north coast of Tasmania and the islands of the Furneaux group, Cape Barren Island being one of those. And therein lies the problem - the wind and waves tearing through Bass Strait from west to east are squeezed even more through the gap of Banks Strait, accelerating the wind and steepening the waves. To make matters worse, initially, the wind and waves curve around the north-east corner of Tasmania, which means they often end up being more on the “nose” than on the beam, which is harder going.
Once past Eddystone Point it was pretty full on. The wind was mostly 20-25 knots, reaching 35 knots at times, with the boat sitting on 9 knots and reaching 11-12 knots at times.
The sense of satisfaction gained from sailing in challenging and cold conditions to a remote and wild island is immense. It made our anchorage overnight in gorgeous Burgess Bay even sweeter.
The project has been three months in the filming and producing. I hope you like it. If you do, please give the videos a “thumbs up”, subscribe to my channel and hit the “bell” button to be notified of future releases.
Great video Grant. I did the same trip last month in much warmer conditions. Beautiful part of the world.
Thanks very much for the kind words. Yes it is a great part of the world and a memorable trip any time of the year.
@@gdc.photowords By the way, I used to be in the Even Keels club and I recall someone mentioning you (apologies if I'm mistaken) were the brains behind. Anyway, I'd like to thank you for helping establish such a cool club which got me into sailing.
@@budawang77 yes that was Leanne and I who started the club. I saw that you had uploaded an Even Keels video to TH-cam so was glad to see that, brought back happy memories. I think you were sailing with Nigel? Thanks for the thanks too, it is really nice to hear that our hard work in setting up the club has helped people to get into sailing. In case you are interested there is another playlist on my channel that has a series of 8 videos that Leanne and I made when we sailed for a month on Even Keels around to Port Davey on the west coast of Tasmania and also a circumnavigation of Tasman and Forrestier Peninsulas. It is called "Hiking and Sailing in Southern Tasmania". Do you have your own boat now?
@@gdc.photowords It was a very successful club (until we sold the boat in 2018) thanks in part to the well thought out constitution and good members too of course. It's amazing to think we cruised EK all up and down the east coast, NZ, New Cal, Lord Howe and even magical Vanuatu. I'm not aware of any other comparable club so it may have been a one off? After EKCC I did go out and buy a Westerly 43 CC which we sailed up and down the east coast over 6 months. After that the pandemic curtailed things and we ended up selling two years ago. Since then I've done some Bluewater crewing in the Pacific and the recent Bass Strait trip. Not sure I'll buy anytime soon, but have my eye out for crewing opportunities.
Takes me back crossing that patch. We had sea fog to add to the experience. Hahah. Very shallow water in Banks Strait.
Certainly an "interesting" stretch of water, glad we didn't have any fog.
Your wet/cold weather gear is worth 1/2 the price of my boat.
Ha ha very funny! Yes, one of the disadvantages of sailing in cold climates. Shorts and t-shirts won't do.
@@gdc.photowords Darwin, NT, wet weather gear,
Old yellow raincoat ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe.