THE RESCUE AND REHABILITATION OF AN OLD SEAWIND CATAMARAN

Jabiru safely at rest on Lake Cootharaba at dusk

 For a number of years, I’d kept an interested eye on a decrepit old Seawind 24 catamaran that had been left unattended and deteriorating on an illegal mooring in Lake Cootharaba. The boat had been in good condition when it first appeared eight or nine years ago but no one had displayed any proprietary interest in it since then and no one at the lake had been able to identify the absent owner.

 About three years back, I learned that an advertisement had appeared in “The Trading Post” offering a Seawind “as is where is” for $2000. Cootharaba locals thought this may be the boat at the lake but that had not been followed up and there’d been no further attempts at advertising. The question of who may own the vessel generated imaginative stories of smuggling, murder, drugs, jail sentences, terminal illnesses. But the mystery about the boat’s ownership remained.

The rig collapsed a few years back, the trampolines rotted out, the motor fused into a large lump of rust and occasionally the boat would break away from her mooring to be recaptured and re-tethered by concerned locals. Others had kicked in the hatches and set about removing some of her more accessible fittings. It seemed a terrible waste to allow such a vessel to simply rot away.

And it was certainly rotting – the hulls were both half full of putrid water with the remains of clothes, soft furnishings and galley provisions washing back and forth as the boat rode heavily in the gentle swells. Whenever I had the chance, I would motor over for a closer look often taking visitors and explaining my plans. Most were discomforted by the inspection. My brother especially found the experience to be uncomfortably eerie and there was talk of haunting and an evil presence.

The notion of rescuing the boat and drifting it across to the isolated beach along Lake Flat Road had been exercising my mind for a year or two. I thought that once there, the hulls could be winched out of the water and it would then be relatively easy to start repairing the vessel. But apart from the initial rescue, I’d no idea about what may be involved in cleaning up and rebuilding the poor boat; I’d also no idea about the legality or social acceptability of such actions.

I was keen to make a change in my life and had planned a three month leave from my work starting on April Fools’ Day 2001. I’d hoped to commence the rescue soon after with a bit of help from Alan Phillips who lives not far away in Coolum. Our bush property at Possum Park would provide rudimentary accommodation as a base for the project and is only a short walk from the hidden beach behind Lake Flat Road. Alan was encouraging with his support for this.

In early March during a visit to the lake, I was shocked to see that the Seawind was not at her mooring. My plans were ruined – my boat had been stolen! Enquiry revealed that Alan Cutts, the owner of a very smart Mark III Seawind, had salvaged the wreck and was working on it at his Boreen Point home.

I tracked Alan down, demanding to know why he had stolen “my” boat. He told me that it had sustained some damage to the starboard bow and was taking water as the result of a recent collision with a speeding powerboat. This had led to official complaints being lodged about its illegal mooring and the “danger it posed to shipping” accessing the Boreen Point boat ramp. It was this final, insulting incident that persuaded Alan to drag the boat out of the water.

His plan was a clever one – he would rebuild the old boat using rigging, sails, sheets and trampolines from his Seawind, provide himself with all brand new replacements for his own boat and sell the reconditioned vessel to someone who could then become a Seawind playmate in the lake. He was anxious to keep the sale price to a minimum requiring payment only for his labour, materials and the cost of fittings that may be needed.

Our hurried discussion took place on the sailing beach at Boreen Point only a few days after the boat had been salvaged. I readily agreed to the arrangement explaining that I’d soon have time to devote to the rebuilding task myself. For the next few weeks, Alan discouraged a stream of people who all claimed to have planned the boat’s salvation and who expected to take over the project. Through this time, I remained concerned that the original owner of the vessel would show up and demand its return.

Alan was confident in our rights of salvage however, having pursued Queensland Transport, the Water Police and the Maritime Safety Authority in his efforts to identify the previous owner and gain permission to remove the hulk. The last registered owner had been listed at a nearby country address but the present occupants had never heard of that person and had been in residence there for seven or eight years.

Still mysterious but I was now feeling a little luckier and with three weeks of work to complete before starting my extended leave, I was able to avoid the charming task of cleaning out the hulls. The boat was disgusting and in the course of the initial clean out, Alan identified the rotting remains of five dead Cormorants, a couple of Mullet and all the slimy flotsam from the boat’s compartments and lockers. There were some small trees growing in crevices, nasty unidentifiable growths below the waterline and an appalling aroma rising from the syrupy accumulation of knee-deep “water” in the hulls.

Cuttsy spent a lot of time pumping out the bilges and rinsing the buoyancy tanks and hull interiors with cleansing chemicals. Eventually it was possible to enter the hulls without being overcome with nausea. Remarkably, there was little structural deterioration - even the metho stove and toilet were salvageable. There was some dry rot in the ply section of a for’ard bulkhead but most other timber sections including bunks and baffles were fine.

With the old boat fully dissembled and lashed to stumps and floor joists under the house, Alan brought his boat home to strip down for painting and tidying. And the Cutts family would have a month or two of disruption, clambering under, over and around Seawind sections that littered the garden and drive. There was seemingly endless sawing, sanding, grinding, drilling with occasional, moderate drinking. At this time, there were also intolerable plagues of mosquitoes so coils constantly burned all over the work sites reducing the attacks but adding to the aromas.

Alan’s friend, Alan - why are there so many “Alans”? - came one weekend to paint the boats. This was an impressive undertaking in the cramped and uncomfortable circumstances and he was able to apply the two-pack white gloss very professionally. The sound of the noisy spray system with air compressor went on for most of the day, occasionally accompanied by the satisfying hiss of beer cans being opened. The four Seawind hulls were now gleaming and shiny, ready for re-assembly.

With Alan Cutts’ boat, AlleyCat now completed and resting on its trailer next door, it was time to roll out the old boat’s hulls and bolt on the beams. Alan Phillips and I would now have a more meaningful involvement as components were found or fabricated and collections of fittings were rummaged through for adaptation to the depleted boat. Some significant items were missing however and it was necessary to make one new centreboard that Merv Anderson did very nicely, also rejuvenating the rudders. We made new hatches and fitted the replacement bulkhead ourselves at a lower cost but with less professionalism.

It was a strange time for us. I was still getting used to the freedom of being on extended leave [but beginning to doubt that I may ever return to my “real” work] and Alan Phillips was doing reasonably well with his investment options. We were both able to devote some worthwhile time to the Seawind project and would rendezvous at Possum Park every few days through April and May to work at it.

At around 4:00pm each day, we would return from the Cutts “boatyard” tired, dirty and cold as winter approached with the sun disappearing quickly into the trees. The day’s activities would be reviewed over beers while we watched the fire we’d light to warm up the shed’s crude hot water system. There would then usually be dinner at the pub where we met many locals and got to know the bar staff and licensee. Our contributions to the pub’s fortunes soon meant that we were held in high esteem and on nodding terms with most of the area’s regular imbibers.

There was a lot of constructive effort through this time but also some shortcuts in fabrication. While work on the boat was proceeding successfully, guided largely by Alan Cutts, there were some developments about which we had misgivings. One such was the arrangement for transferring the trampolines from AlleyCat since she was soon to receive her smart new set. The old ones had been re-stitched in places by a local who received the detailed measurements and instructions while swigging something peculiar from a grubby brown bottle.

We installed the tramps and found that they didn’t quite fit so we replaced bolt ropes and re-sewed repairs. We drilled out the rivets holding the rear tramp tracks then realised we needed to reattach them. We drilled out rivets locating fairleads to support the for’ard tramp then replaced them with ineffectual tracking.

The things were never quite right and have caused us a lot of anxiety and effort.

On one occasion, a full day was spent in attempting to refit the rear tramps after some further repairs. That resulted in the destruction of one of our sheet winches and most of our faith in the scheme. Ten months later, the rear trampolines have been expensively replaced with hard decks permanently attached to an alloy framework – these are excellent and have made the boat safer, stronger and more capacious. The for’ard trampoline tracks have been replaced with more appropriate sections and there’s been more sewing, drilling, bolting and riveting. But hopefully we are now through all the difficulties of our decking.

During the reconstruction, we amused everyone by installing a small washbasin in the starboard hull near the toilet claiming it as “ensuite”. The best that AlleyCat could boast for her facilities was a bucket so we felt pretty smart. This indulgence commenced a game of one-up-man-ship that still proceeds with significant improvements to the two boats being proudly announced whenever possible.

AlleyCat now has a proper toilet, a fridge and a very slightly longer bowsprit but still no ensuited stateroom, cappuccino machine or nicely stocked wine cellar!

The Cutts family and various friends maintained a keen interest in the boat’s development but by late May just about everyone had seen enough of it. We planned to get her into the water on Saturday the ninth of June and finished off a few tasks on the trailer near the boat ramp beforehand. These included stepping the mast, fitting the motor and applying the registration numbers.

Ron Weston, busy-body and occupier of “Eagle’s Nest”, an untidy shack that overlooks the lake at our boat’s former mooring site, strolled over to enquire if this was the boat that had been stolen. He’d already had a crack at Alan Cutts about it some months earlier so this was not too much of a surprise. Alan Phillips and I were restrained in our explanations but it was not pleasant to be confronted like that after so much re-creative work. We determined to hit him with a lump of wood and a defamation writ if more was said but he’s still not given us an opportunity despite subsequent unfriendly glances whenever he passes by.

The Seawind made an impressive sight on her trailer at a boat ramp normally used by little tinnies and a surprising number of people from the town gathered for the launch. Much had been made of the project over the past few months and I guess many were interested to see the boat returned to the Cootharaba waters. Alan Phillips and I were joined by our friends Tom, Gavin, Tess, Lucy, Nelly and my eldest daughter Tegan, all of whom had travelled from respectively, Brisbane and Hervey Bay to participate in the momentous event.

Gavin “blessed” the boat, tipping a stubbie of VB onto her while everyone else sipped beer or champagne in the failing light. It was a proud and exciting time for us all and we looked forward to getting the boat sailing the following day.

I was still tightening the rig at dusk and hoisted the mainsail to check that all was working. By dark, I couldn’t get the thing back down so I left the boat overnight with the sail still up and set about an evening of nervous celebratory drinking.

I was up at dawn Sunday to check the boat but still could not drop the sail so I motored her around to the beach near our new mooring expecting to lower the mast there. Thankfully, the journey must have shaken something loose and we found that there was no longer a problem bringing the mainsail down.

The rest of the day was spent getting her ready for a little sail while we ate lunch and drank beer on board. The “maiden voyage” was undertaken in the mid-afternoon with no wind at all so we just drifted out for a few hundred metres then motored back. There was a nice photo opportunity during the preparations when I hoisted the jib upside down having confused the tack and the head – not an encouraging sight and I’ve wondered since if this was a good or bad omen of some obscure maritime kind!

Alan Cutts had ordered self-adhesive lettering so it was not long before the boats were appropriately labelled. Our previously unidentified Mk I Seawind became Jabiru, named after that tall, elegant, wading bird and the only Australian native member of the stork family.

There’s a sympathetic story about these birds – Early Ornithologists were keen to acquire zoological specimens of the Jabiru and had employed aboriginal hunters whose perfected technique was to stalk the swamps where the birds enjoyed lying back against the reeds, sunning themselves while at rest. When surprised, they were too slow to regain their posture and gather the momentum for flight. The birds are apparently readily domesticated. Like her namesake, the Seawind Jabiru was readily captured while at rest, sunning herself in the wild. However, her domestication has not been so readily achieved.

In subsequent months, much additional work has been done with the boat to improve her systems and structures and to deal with repairs and maintenance. She has also had a bit of excitement with a trip to Hervey Bay for participation in the 2001 National Trailerable Multihull Regatta, the Annual Cootharaba Trailer Sailer Regatta and regular club racing at the lake. She has enjoyed recreational roles in providing an excellent platform for crabbing expeditions and pleasant journeys to Noosa, Tewantin, Teewah, Mill Point, Kinaba and the lake in general.

A planned visit to Moreton Bay has not yet eventuated but should be managed later in the year when the winds are more favourable. In the meantime, Jabiru is being prepared for the May 2002 Bay to Bay Race followed hopefully by a trip through the Whitsunday Islands in the company of Alan Cutts on AlleyCat.

Lake Cootharaba is a wonderful place for an aged Seawind to live out its life. The waters are gentle, a safe mooring can be established, there’s simple access to a range of destinations from local campsites through to the Coral Sea and beyond. There is companionship, with two other Seawinds on hand ensuring that they are never lonely and on Alan Cutts’ excellent trailer, it’s easy to dry dock the boats for any significant repairs or modifications. Importantly, there is a comforting community interest in the lake’s maritime inhabitants with passers by checking daily on the moorings and generally watching over their wellbeing.