Fatal Storm (22 page)

“The same thing happened the second time; I got halfway into the harness and he lifted me off again. So I fell back into the water. The third time he sent a frogman down, and I think he then realised how bloody hard it was to get in the harness with the life jacket. When I finally got into that harness I did not have one ounce of energy left because I’d been swimming around in the ocean for 20 minutes. As I was being lifted from the water I just remember looking up and seeing this brilliant white light above me. I genuinely didn’t know if I was alive or dead. That was the defining moment. I knew that if I were alive then I would never do another Sydney to Hobart. My wife, my children, family and friends meant too much to me – nothing else.”

With three out of nine crewmembers rescued in one hour Tanzi Lea then had no alternative but to head
Shark 20
for shore. Fuel was running low and it was a 100-mile slog back to base at Merimbula. Lea wanted to keep enough in reserve should another emergency develop unexpectedly. The conditions were extremely dangerous for any craft whether it be at sea or in the air. Lea had already heard another rescue chopper was leaving Merimbula to go to
Sword of Orion.
That was small consolation for the frustration he and his crew faced in having to leave six men on a crippled yacht.

“We were monitoring all our instruments and it soon became evident to me that the engines had salted up reasonably badly,” recalls Lea. “The engine temperatures were going up. The salt spray had been coming at us so hard while we were doing the rescue it even got past a protection device on the front of the engine. It was a situation that could be dangerous if, for any reason, I had to apply power very quickly. The salting restricts the air flow that you need instantly for extra power. It could have surged the engines – that’s when you get an incorrect relationship between air flow and the fuel going into the engine. It can actually get the air flow going the wrong way from the engine and then it becomes very hot. That means no power is produced at all so you’ve virtually lost the engine.” While not a serious emergency, Lea nonetheless took precautions and piloted the chopper in a conservative fashion back to Merimbula. Upon arrival he executed a running landing instead of the usual hover landing.

As soon as it was known that someone had been lost from
Sword of Orion
and that the yacht was in danger of sinking, a state of shock overtook the wives, family and
friends of those on board. Their fears and anxieties were exacerbated by the sketchy information available. Libby Kulmar sensed the weather must have been pretty tough late in the day because the position reports which usually flowed from the club at regular intervals were slow in coming that evening. She also knew that earlier in the day
Sword of Orion
was placed seventh in the fleet.

After going to the movies with her two daughters, her sister Pam and her children, Libby returned home for what she hoped would be a good night’s sleep. She was still tired after all the Christmas activities. She put Madeline to bed and then took Pip to her bed upstairs. She tuned into the late news and was horrified at the report which came through. “It’s now common knowledge that there’s a man overboard from
Sword of Orion
,” said the reporter.

“The phone was ringing within a minute,” recalls Libby. “My closest friend said, ‘Do you want me to come over?’ and I said, ‘No, it’s OK. I’m fine.’ I was desperately trying to get onto anyone – the race press centre, AMSA, anyone – to find out what was happening.”

Libby Kulmar then rang the author less than a minute after he had walked away from the television broadcast set in Hobart. Her voice was tremulous with fear.

“Rob, it’s Libby Kulmar, what’s the story?”

“Libby, what do you mean?” asked the author.

“What do you know about
Sword of Orion
?“

For an instant the author had a horrible thought Libby might be telling him it was Steve who was missing. “What can you tell me?” he asked with concern.

“Only what you just told me on TV,” she replied.

“Libby, I was told officially that all the families of those aboard
Sword of Orion
had been briefed on the situation. Are you telling me you know nothing?”

“Yes. Only what you just said on TV.”

The author gave her a direct contact number for AMSA Her girlfriend Heidi was certain that moral support was vital and came immediately around. Details were still being finalised at that stage and aside from ringing AMSA there was little they could do but wait.

At 3.30am the phone rang. It was Steve.

“Darling, I’ve only got about 30 seconds on this phone. I just wanted to tell you I’m safe. I love you. I’ll call you again as soon as I can.” Kulmar was phoning from Merimbula airport not long after he had arrived. He had a shower at the airport and was handed a pile of new clothes donated by a local surf shop. He stripped down to his soaked T-shirt and as he took it off, he sensed something hanging around his neck. It was the plastic pink piglet’s head “good luck charm” daughter Madeline had put there the morning of the race and told him not to remove.

The Sea Hawk
Tiger 70
launched out of Merimbula at 2.47am on December 28 with veteran flight commander Lieutenant Commander Adrian Lister at the controls. In the seat alongside him and acting as co-pilot was Lieutenant Michael Curtis, while in the back Lieutenant Marc Pavillard and Leading Seaman David Oxley sat and pondered the severity of the storm. Just 15 minutes later, 40 miles off the coast, circumstances began to degenerate and the grey chopper was hurled headlong into the tempest.

“The conditions were atrocious, the worst I’ve ever flown in,” said Curtis, an airman with just four years under his belt. “The weather did concern me but at the same time it was good experience, because being a young pilot coming through, I had a trusted guy next to me. It
was really good to be under his command. I didn’t have to make the decisions. That was his job. We certainly knew what we were heading for. We were listening to the Sea Kings talking about 50-foot waves and wind up to 80 knots.”

They had heard how the crew of the Sea King
Shark 20
had carried out their rescues and they discussed the techniques that would prove most effective. They had no direct signal from the yacht, an EPIRB for example, to give them a target, so once they arrived in the area the searchlight went on. The chopper’s powerful light amply illuminated the enormous seas and the crew was astounded a successful rescue mission had already been performed in such conditions. It was an hour before sun-up when the remaining
Sword of Orion
crew first heard, then saw, the Sea Hawk emerge from a thick bank of cloud.

It came in and remained at a high station, circling the yacht every 15 minutes, confirming the yacht’s position and the prevailing weather behaviour. The Sea Hawk crew asked those still aboard
Sword of Orion
if they wanted to be lifted straight away, but they replied they’d prefer to wait until daylight. The wind was still gusting at up to 80 knots and a rescue attempt in pitch darkness would have been at least unconscionably hazardous, if not downright foolhardy.

“When the guys decided to wait until first light everybody was happy,” recalls Marc Pavillard. “The only problem was our fuel. I thought we would have 30 to 40 minutes to rescue all remaining six crew. It had taken the Sea King guys around an hour and a half to get three. We carry 3800 pounds of fuel and burn roughly 1000 pounds per hour. What we did do while we were waiting was pull back the engines and do it nice and slow. We waited for about an hour until just before first light to
make our first rescue approach. We’d already made a decision that Dave Oxley wouldn’t go into the water for a rescue unless it was absolutely necessary. We lowered the Hi-line and got it to the yacht first try. We dragged it across the yacht as it trailed out behind us at about a 60-degree angle.”

As the Sea Hawk descended to the lowest possible altitude for the rescue, Lister would lose visual contact with the yacht. Pavillard became the guide, talking to Lister continually as he moved the chopper towards its target. With the side door open he would lean out and keep eye contact on the yacht – “left on line, right on line, 10 yards, five yards, four, three, two, one, stand-by, steady.” As well as monitoring the approaching waves, making sure the chopper wasn’t too low, Curtis’ job was to concentrate on all engine instruments. He had to be certain everything was functioning perfectly.

The jet engines were working overtime as the chopper continually went between lift, descent and hover. Engine failure at such a low altitude in that weather would be catastrophic. The pilot would have to try and fly out of trouble by dipping the helicopter’s nose and gaining airspeed. If they were in the middle of a winch, the call from the pilot would invariably be to cut the wire and drop the man back into the water. Each crewman on the helicopter had access to a button to activate the wire cutter.

The rescue process was going rapidly and smoothly. Each time the Hi-line got to the yacht a crewmember would attach himself to it, jump overboard, wait for the yacht to drift away and at the same time pull the rescue strop towards him. But again the bulky life jackets, which in one way were keeping them alive, were also making it near impossible to get the rescue strop around their bodies properly. Pavillard was working the winch, trying
to ensure that there was enough slack in the cable so the man in the water would not lose his hold on the strop. He had to allow for the waves charging through and leaving a massive trough behind.

“The seas were falling so quickly I was basically just winching out, winching in, winching out to keep just enough slack in it but also have the control needed to stop them going too far away,” he recalls. “At one stage it all got out of whack. A big wave came through and the guy slipped away from me. He fell down the back of one wave and the wire went taut. He got washed away from us at an angle which caused the cable to get caught on the right front wheel, metal to metal, which isn’t good. When we winched him in we could feel a problem with the wire but we just had to keep going with lifting the other guys.”

Rob Kothe was this fourth “guy” having difficulties. When he went up on deck he could see why the helicopter was having trouble holding station – the yacht was bobbing up and down violently. Kothe was helped across the cockpit to the starboard quarter and he jumped into the water only to realise he was on the leeward side. As the yacht swung around, Kothe went under and clipped his head on the hull. While underwater he noticed the impressive carbon fibre rudder, but then to his horror he saw the line that led to the helicopter was looped around it. Despite his injuries and the buoyancy of his life jacket he managed to dive down and untangle the line. On board the Sea Hawk, the crew saw Kothe go under and feared he had been knocked unconscious. Thankfully he surfaced after a few anxious seconds and was winched to safety.

“The very last guy to leave, Carl Watson, was really buggered when he got in the water,” recalls Pavillard. “He got hit by some big waves. Time was ticking away
and he couldn’t get the strop on properly. He just had it underneath one arm. It was jammed somehow in his life jacket. He started to go down for the count, it wasn’t looking good for him. In the end we made the call.” Half in and half out of the strop and suffering from severe exhaustion, Watson was finally lifted away from the damaged yacht.

With six sailors safe in the chopper the door was closed and the Sea Hawk headed for Merimbula. Adrian Lister was an extremely tired but satisfied man. It had been very close. Like Tanzi Lea and the
Shark 20
, the Sea Hawk made it back with precious little fuel left in the tanks but plenty of sea salt around the engines. Once on the ground Pavillard reported the chafe on the winch wire to the maintenance crew. They began pulling the wire off the winch drum until they found the damage – three broken strands. One of the maintenance men gave the wire a sharp tug. The wire broke.

The thought that he invited his friend, Glyn Charles, to join the crew of
Sword of Orion
, and then he subsequently lost his life, hounded Steve Kulmar day and night.

“I found it really hard to put Glyn’s death aside, and in the end I spent nearly nine months on a couch talking to a lady psychologist about how to get over it,” Kulmar recalled. “I didn’t feel guilt, more a sense of responsibility, and it took a long while to sort it out. She had me imprint on my mind that it wasn’t my turn, and ultimately I managed to put it all in a box and move on. I’m far more fatalistic about life these days.”

The cleansing even extended to the pink piglet good-luck charm that his now 20-year-old daughter, Maddie, gave to him on the dock prior to the start in 1998. “I kept the pink piglet for about a year-and-a-half, then
when I wanted to put everything aside – to ‘clean-slate’ things – I clean-slated it. I simply put everything in a box, either emotionally or physically, and said to myself, ‘Well, that was then. This is now. Move on’.”

Still, it took Kulmar nearly four years to get back to sailing, but ocean racing remains off his agenda. “At the end of the whole Hobart ‘98 saga, my belief in sailing was shattered. I guess it was because I always kind of assumed I was indestructible. Those kinds of incidents, like what happened to us on
Sword of Orion
, only happened to those less prepared, less professional, less experienced people, than we were. I’d think, ‘That’s a shame – poor blokes’, then shrug it off and not have it bother me. When it actually happens to you with a very experienced crew on what was clearly a very good and very well prepared boat, it becomes quite shattering, and that’s why I had to step away from sailing.

“A lot of people said that they needed to get back on the horse and ride it again, but I’d sailed boats all my life – I’d been sailing a long, long time, and I’d never been confronted by anything as earth-shattering as this. It destroyed my personal belief system – my faith in what I could do. So I just needed to step away from sailing for a while. I had tremendous support from my family and a lot of very good friends, all of whom were sailors, and they said, ‘Look, we understand’.”