A Sunshine Coast rescue crew has battled challenging conditions to rescue four people on a stricken boat 140 nautical miles offshore.
Six Coast Guard Mooloolaba members endured a testing 31-hour journey on Mooloolaba Rescue, to help the crew aboard a 19m motor cruiser that had engine and fuel troubles.
It was the service’s second furthest rescue mission and it was launched just hours after personnel came to the aid of a 90-tonne tuna fishing vessel (see video below).
Commander Lee Campbell lauded the crew that took part in the long-range operation east of Mooloolaba.
“It was an outstanding voyage by the volunteers”, he said. “They did an excellent job.”
“They train for it but 31 hours out on the water in a rescue mission is pretty taxing.
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“We do ensure we manage fatigue, but it still wears everybody out and there were really rough conditions.”
The crew was confronted by Sea State 7 conditions about 20 nautical miles into the journey.
“There were near gale-force winds and the seas were around 2-2.5m,” he said.
“It was what we call a confused sea, where the wind was coming from one direction and the waves were coming from another direction.
“It was like a washing machine affect: it buffers you about quite badly.”
He said they never considered turning around.
“We never thought about it. We just wondered how many bruises we’d have by the time we got through it,” he said.
Cdr Campbell lauded their boat Mooloolaba Rescue, a 13.8m aluminium vessel with twin 500hp Cummins engines.
“It’s got a lot of grunt,” he said.
The motor cruiser they helped was travelling from the Gold Coast to Noumea in New Caledonia when it lost fuel.
“When they realised things were not kosher, they started making their way towards Mooloolaba but they only got as far as 140 nautical miles off the coast and then they used their sat phone to call the (Maritime Safety Authority) rescue co-ordination centre in Canberra, who got on to the Brisbane Water Police to find out if someone could go and get them,” he said.
The water police called Cdr Campbell on Friday about 10.30pm.
“They asked me if we were capable of going that far out and I assured them we were,” he said.
“They said they were monitoring the situation and they’d get back to me if they needed us to assist.
“They then gave me a ring at 3am and said, ‘can you please go and get them?’.
“I assembled a crew and we took off at 5.15am.
“The weather got bad … (but) we arrived at the vessel at about 3.15pm and took them under tow.
“Everybody was well on board and we motored back to Mooloolaba at about 6 knots, so it took us until 12 o’clock the next day.”
Cdr Campbell said the motor cruiser was docked at The Wharf marina.
“They’re trying to find out what the problem was,” he said.
“The vessel has got to be deemed seaworthy before they can get it going again. It could be there for a while.”
Coast Guard Mooloolaba has recorded one longer rescue in its 49-year existence: a crew came to the aid of a boat that was 180 nautical miles off the coast in 2010.
The weekend mission came just hours after flotilla members helped a tuna fishing crew.
A seven-person rescue crew came to the aid of a six-person crew aboard a 22m vessel that had engine failure 26 nautical miles offshore.
The rescue crew’s lead skipper Ian Hunt said they received a request for help on Friday about 11am.
“We had another job on at the time so we headed off at about 12.45pm,” he said.
“We got out there at about 3pm and had to tow it back at 7-8 knots.
“They (the fishing crew) had been heading out, so they didn’t have any catch on board. If the vessel was coming back, it would have been around 140 tonnes.
“But it was still quite heavy (to tow) at 90 tonnes.”
They returned by Friday night, before Mooloolaba Rescue was called into action in the early hours of the following morning, when it was refuelled and taken back out to sea.
Mr Hunt said their busy weekend also included the rescue of a kayaker who took on water on Sunday.
