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Day 5 – The Infamous Bass Strait
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to Day 5 of our voyage. It’s been one of those challenging days at sea battling the conditions that Bass Strait is famous for but that’s what makes it such a great stretch of water to sail. As I say if it was easy everyone would be out here. That’s enough from me I will now handover to the Youthies to tell you all about our day. Until tomorrow, take care. Captain Gav
Friday the 13th definitely lived up to its reputation!
We started the day calmly anchored off the Coast of King Island, with a morning stroll around the upper deck and followed by a game of Ubantu. We then had pancakes for breakfast loaded with boysenberry ice cream, berries, chocolate and basically anything we could dream of (thanks Adam!) while the sun rose and lit the sky in a range of pink and orange colour’s, spirits were high and we were ready to set off east across the Bass Straight towards Deal Island, and that’s when the adventure really began………!
It started smoothly, with some decent winds and light swells, we practiced our tacking stations and moved between the three watch stations, in preparation for Command Day. As we headed further into Bassy and away from King Island, Friday the 13th decided it wanted to play; luckily we were all well prepared as we finally have our sea legs!!!! The swells started to reach 3-4 metres high and the winds were record breaking 30-35 knots; well at least that’s how it felt. Really we were just witnessing the lovely Bassy Weather. Wet weather gear was essential for all those who wished not to get hypothermia and as the rain set in and the winds blew up we were ready to tackle whatever it had to throw at us. Young Endeavour really showed her strengths as we tilted a not so pleasant 20-25 degrees, with water rushing over the deck we went into place to finally set the square sails (now we’re a real pirate ship!). The weather didn’t let up and the winds were pushing us up to over 10 knots, while our average is 4 knots.
We were enjoying the rough seas, and relaxing in our racks when upon Red’s watch the weather turned again and we were hastily called upon deck to furl in the main sail, along with the jib. While furling the jib the winds increased, and the sea swelled angrily and Friday the 13th decided to land us with the necessary bad luck! The jib sheet literally got its nickers in a knot and we were unable to untangle it (something the staffies had never experienced before!). As Holly stated “it needed a good detangling brushâ€. Unfortunately for us this put the jib out of action, meaning we would need to make a pit stop in order to free it, so Deal Island was taken off our course and replaced with Wilson’s Promontory.
Dinner was then an experience and a half as our beautiful ship continued to rock. Youthies found that they wished that they had Elly and Caroline’s skills in ice skating, as the decks become as slippery as ice, and the staffies put up safety lines. The Galley had trays flying off the shelves, and many a tea was sacrificed to the deck. As I write this, Josh is putting in his best efforts to stop my chair from sliding across the deck (sometimes in vain.)
Don’t worry mums, dads, friends and family, we are having an extremely great time and are very safe! There hasn’t been a single youthie without a smile on their face! 😀
Elly: Hi mum, dad, Ash, Daniel and Ebbie! I am having an amazing time and am really in my element! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I hope you had an amazing day and I’ll see you in Melbourne Soon! Joel says happy birthday too!
Josh: Hi Mum, Dad and family! I’m having a ball, hope you guys are all doing good and I’ll see you soon. ïŠ
Latitude/Longitude:
Conditions:
Currently located 40nm to the SW of Wilson's Promontory sailing under a reduced sail plan and experiencing very strong 25-30kt SSW winds with a 3-4m SW swell. Our current speed is 8-9kts and the temperature is 14 degrees but feels colder.
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Hi Everyone, Welcome to Day 6 of our voyage. The strong northerly’s experienced yesterday moderated overnight and by the early hours of this morning we had entered Great Oyster Bay and were now motor sailing due to the light conditions. Just before sunrise we altered course to the east and transited through Schouten Passage which gave the morning watch an opportunity to view the western side of the Freycinet Peninsular and witness a spectacular sunrise. Once safely through the passage we altered course to the north, handed in sail, then proceeded directly into the famous Wineglass Bay where we came to anchor at 0830. Once at anchor we conducted the normal morning’s activities and have spent the rest of the day enjoying this beautiful part of Tasmania. That’s enough from me I will now handover to Liv and Mei who have done a wonderful job of writing tonight’s Log. Until tomorrow, take care. Captain Gav Ahoy there! This morning started off with a “funny” parody of “Let It Go” from “Frozen” featuring a memorable yet un-relatable line: “the vomit never bothered me anyway”, created by Red Watch. Thankfully, White Watch could sleep through this as they were on guts watch from 0000 to 0400, where they worked as a team to set the storm jib in a record time of 40 minutes! Other highlights of the night included learning about navigation, steering the helm by the wind for the first time and our famous midnight café featuring a lot of vegemite. Some very special guest dolphins swam around the ship and looked truly majestic as they glowed with bioluminescence. We anchored and woke up to the stunning view of The Hazards at Wineglass Bay, which we later hiked up and saw a spectacular view of Young Endeavour looking gorgeous in all its glory. But before this, we had mid voyage chats where we evaluated our goals and how we’ve progressed since the beginning of the voyage. We then played the inaugural bin ball championships created by Bucky at Wineglass stadium featuring a sand court. Unsurprisingly, White Watch won with a tight score of 3-2 in the finals. After the hike, which we were told was going to be around 20 minutes but ended up being more than an hour, some Youthies took the chance to have a quick swim before going back to the ship. Tonight’s dinner menu included lamb satay curry and grilled chicken, as well as a special addition of Hoppy’s Sundae Bar, which proved to be very popular. Most of us decided to have dinner on the deck and take advantage of the picturesque view of Wineglass Bay. As always, a big shoutout to our Head Chef Haydo and Masterchef assistants for keeping our bellies happy! After dinner, we had a self-reflection “Stop Start Continue” workshop in our watches where we wrote about certain aspects we want to work on to improve ourselves. Hopefully we will see that we have been able to make progress on our goals when we get to read them again in six months’ time. We believe in you, you got this! Currently, we’re waiting to start the anchor watches (our favourite) and preparing to set sail again tomorrow. Finally a shoutout to Mum, Dad and Ruben miss you guys so much. Remember I’m looking at the same moon and stars as you are, Love you - Liv Shoutout to Dad as I live out his dream of “enjoying good food on a navy ship”. Mei This is Liv and Mei signing off J
Hi Everyone, Welcome to Day 5 of our voyage. Overnight and during the early hours of this morning we continued to enjoy a great sail around the southern Tasmanian coast with all of the watches kept busy with setting and furling sails and doing some practical navigation. By sunrise we were located just to the south of Bruny Island now just sailing under fore & aft sail and hoping that the day would get warmer, which sadly it didn’t. But the cold and a little rain hasn’t dampened our spirits and we have still managed to fit in a lot of great activities today and our young mariners continue to impress with their endless energy and motivation. That’s enough from me I will now handover to Riley and Jack who have done a great job of writing tonight’s Log. Until tomorrow, take care. Captain GavV03/23 – DAY 5
This morning the youth crew of the STS Young Endeavour woke to the frightening sound of red watch singing a parody of Riptide by Vance Joy over the ships intercom. This was then followed by the message that blue watch, the watch that was on guts the night before, could have a well-deserved sleep in. While members from blue watch went back to sleep the rest of the crew made their way down to the galley to enjoy another one of Haydos fantastic meals. After everyone had had breakfast the morning brief was given at 0900 which involved informing the youthies of the day ahead and a very educational story by Matty on the origins of the nautical term “two six heave”. After the morning brief the crew went below decks for Chucky’s favourite part of the day: Happy Hour! (Also known as cleaning the ship hour). In the afternoon the three watches conducted rotational tacking stations. This involved the watches rotating through the positions that the other watches fill when we tack which helped the crew get a better idea on what happens when we tack. Captain Gav came up on deck to give us a crash course about sailing theory and the ships history. This was very interesting and gave the youth crew a helpful insight into why different sails are used depending on different wind conditions. Round 3 of the famous Rope races were then commenced at noon with a twist of the round being worth double points. This highly non-competitive competition ended with Blue and Red watch drawing making it a close race for the rest of the trip The biggest highlight of most people’s day was sailing through the straight between Tasman Island and Cape Pillar in the afternoon. We all gathered at the bow of the ship as we gazed upon the spectacular columnar basalt edged cliffs rose up on either side of the narrow passageway. We had to furl all the sails, which involved sending two youth crew members up the main mast in rough swells and high winds to gasket the sail. Engines where turned on for the first time that day so we could safely pass the straight. The effort was truly worth it as we passed the resident seal colony and schools of dolphins. One of the greatest things about the STS Young Endeavour is even though the ship may sway from side to side and youth crew struggle to walk straight without getting knocked into a wall; the ships Chef continues to work hard and impress us with meals made from a kitchen which is smaller than the size of most people’s laundry room. It continues to amaze me how he keeps this quality in these rocky conditions. Not enough praise can be given to the hard work this man puts in keeping everyone happy. Go Haydo!Hi mum and dad I’m still alive, somehow we are already halfway through. See you in six days. Jack. You probably won’t see this but love you to the moon and back mum and dad. Riley. Until next time… Youthies Jack & Riley
