Debilitating sea sickness and being subject of a daring rescue in “quite horrendous” seas won’t stop one yachtswoman returning to the water almost immediately.
Lisa, 48, and Brett, 60, returned to dry land on Tuesday night more than 24 hours after mechanical failures left them at the mercy of the sea 160km off the NSW south coast.
Police and navy vessels battled gale-force winds and six-metre waves to reach the stricken Spirit of Mateship, which had by that stage drifted another 140km offshore.
After thanking her rescuers, Lisa said she was looking forward to reuniting with her family including her two children on Wednesday.
But the situation hadn’t turned her away from the water, even for a week.
“I’m going back out Thursday,” she told reporters.
“Not so far out – might just go to Broadwater on the Gold Coast for a little bit.”
Brett, who was greeted on dry land by his son and said he hoped to speak to his parents soon, declined to detail exactly what went wrong on the 19-metre yacht to prompt Monday’s distress call.
But he said the occupants were tired, seasick and felt they could not continue any further.
“Waiting was all right, the boat is more than seaworthy,” he said.
Lisa added: “There were just two of us on there, it was too much to keep going and it could have got worse.”
The distress beacon alert was received about midday on Monday but “quite horrendous” conditions forced the boat many kilometres east, plaguing rescue efforts.
“That’s how strong the winds were and how fast it was pushing the vessel away,” police search and rescue co-ordinator Sergeant Ryan Spong told reporters.
Dramatic footage of the rescue showed a small police recovery vessel next to the yacht as the two boats rose and fell in heaving seas.
The navy’s second largest ship, HMAS Canberra, and HMAS Arunta assisted by sheltering the smaller police boats from the high seas.
After landing aboard the police vessel, the yachties each enjoyed a good coffee and a meat pie before crashing into a deep sleep.
Brett, believed to have been living on the boat since January, and his companion set sail from Jervis Bay in recent days.
The yacht, which has entered a number of Sydney to Hobart races, crewed by wounded and injured former defence force personnel to raise money for charity Mates4Mates, has been abandoned.
Authorities said the case highlighted the importance of carrying emergency position indicating radio beacons, or EPIRBs.
“Without the activation of the EPIRB … it’s unlikely we would have been aware of the distress situation,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Ben Flight said.
Brett underlined that message.
“Have an EPIRB, it was brilliant,” he said.
“Otherwise, who knows where we’d be.”
