March 23rd: Rescue

Thursday 21/03
A brief visit to the Keppels.

Friday 22/03
Enter Port Lincoln (S22°32.14, E150°45.2) at night,  in nice moonlight, been there before on the Mudcat..


Saturday 23/03
Off Cape Townshend
on Saturday Kuna picked up a family of four in a swamped dingy in rough seas 45 mins after their 55 motor cruiser caught fire and they abandoned ship with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It was in a remote area and there's few boats transiting this time of year, so they were very Lucky Kuna was in the area. No time to take photos. They're all OK (the boy had a broken leg) but in the process of coming along side their swamped aluminum dingy in very choppy conditions, it repeatedly banged violently on Kuna's hull, so she's got a few scratches. 3 hours later a rescue shopper (against our polite advice) tried to drop a Medic down onto us by winch and succeeded in only fouling our rig with their line! Was rather unpleasant in 25 knots of wind and heaving seas to be tied by your mast to a hovering chopper! Having had to stop sailing because of rescue chopper orders, Kuna was now unable to sail because of tangled rig so we had to motor around the back of Cape Townshend. The coastguard rescue boat met us there with the medic onboard but they were so fast pulling along side even before Kuna's was anchored properly. The evening was spent climbing up the backstay to detangle the rescue line from the topping lift, salvaged the yellow line to turn it into a reefing line, good bootie!