Tow, tow, tow your boat
Open water jaunt from Tweed not ‘good decision’
A GROUP of amateur Tweed Heads sailors were “extremely lucky” not to sink their houseboat in waters off Main Beach yesterday, experts say.
Southport Coast Guard commander Ken Stanley said two men and a woman, who appeared to be “real amateur sailors”, were yesterday escorted into the Seaway about 9am after their two-storey houseboat got into “serious trouble” out to sea near Main Beach.
The group had travelled up the coast from Tweed Heads in a boat Mr Stanley said was not built for open water.
Coast guards were alerted to the near-disaster after a member of the public phoned to say they could see a boat, that looked like it was sinking, from the shore at Main Beach.
“We went out there and he was taking on water at the bow,” Mr Stanley said.
“You could see it quite clearly, the boat was 15-20 degrees in the water and the motors were right out.”
Mr Stanley said two rescue boats escorted the group back into the Broadwater across the calmer southern side of the bar, where there is an area of shoal build-up.
“The main concern we had was that when he came though the Seaway, with the conditions as they were and the bow being dipped down, if he got into any sort of trouble or a wave came, he’d just nose dive straight in,” he said.
“Thank goodness he followed us in because if he headed to the northern side and the waves been half-a-metre higher he would have sunk on the bar.
“For a houseboat it was extremely rough as they have no wave clearance.
“Even after he was through the bow was still dipping down.
“I think they were real amateur sailors and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have tried to cross the Southport bar alone in those conditions, no way.
“It’s not a done thing, to be in a houseboat, to be out in that sort of weather.
“They’re not designed to be in open water and to bring them up from the Tweed to here, I hate to say it, I don’t think it was really good decision.”
The sailors told coast guards they expected to continue on to Jacobs Well.