Disabled and adrift in Upstart Bay
August 3-5, 2016. Another early morning start saw us underway across Upstart Bay heading for Townsville well before the sun appeared above the horizon. With over 70 nautical miles to travel, we knew it was going to be a long day but had no idea just how challenging it would turn out to be. Again the wind was stronger than the high teens predicted for the morning. Our gauge seemed permanently stuck around 25 knots but ALL the forecasts we checked had agreed that the wind would ease right down through the day. In the meantime we had two reefs in the mainsail, left the mizzen in the bag and had the genoa pulling us downwind nicely. We had been underway for about an hour when we found the auto-pilot having trouble holding course and the boat weaving considerably back and forward. We blamed the large swells pushing through on our stern quarter and tried resetting it a couple of times with no improvement. Rob began hand steering and quickly discovered he was also having trouble keeping...
