Lap of Tasmania

Cruizen

My boat, Cruizen, is a 2004 Buizen 48, one of thirty six built in Sydney between 1990 and 2010. Buizens are comfortable motorsailer-style cruising yachts with the luxury of an inside helm position—ideal for Tasmania’s occasionally cold and wet weather.

The Van Diemen’s Land Circumnavigation

The Van Diemen’s Land Circumnavigation (VDLC) cruise is a “cruise in company” run every second year since 1990 by the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania.  The cruise schedule has the fleet leaving Hobart in mid-February when the weather is most stable. It takes about a month to complete an anticlockwise circumnavigation of Tasmania, which gets you back to Hobart in mid-March.  The relaxed schedule leaves plenty of time to explore anchorages, wait for weather windows and sit out the inevitable gales.

Why Cruise in Company

The advantage of doing the trip as part of the VDLC is the great local knowledge of the organizers and other participants, the added safety of the daily position reports and the camaraderie of the other sailors you meet along the way. It’s not just the advice on the best anchorage, there is a generosity of spirit in the fleet. We shared fishing catches, spare parts and tools for running repairs, fresh water from desalinators and many a “sundowner”. The daily sched is run as a video conference via Starlink and, as well as the safety aspect, it became a great way for everyone to share the day’s adventures and get to know each other. It was our favourite reality TV show!

Hobart to Hobart

I decided to do the circumnavigation from Hobart to Hobart (but joining the fleet in the Tamar River is an option as there is a second group of boats which come over from Melbourne and start their circumnavigation there). We departed Sydney on 11 January and having just done a very uncomfortable upwind Hobart Race on a TP52 it felt like Groundhog Day to be heading south again so soon.  But the wonderful thing about cruising is that you get to choose when to leave so you can wait for the right weather. We had good easterly reaching conditions and good current out wide, so we did the trip in a single leg all the way to Schouten Passage on the east coast.  From there we hopped down to Hobart where I left the boat for a few weeks before the VDLC started.

East Coast & Furneaux Group: The first leg of the VDLC is the Tassie east coast including Port Arthur, Maria Island and the very scenic Freycinet Peninsula area.  Most of this leg can be done by day sailing if you get the weather right.

We also visited spectacular Clarke Island in the Furneaux Group with its striking orange granite boulders and white sand beaches before heading west to Beauty Point Yacht Club in the Tamar River. It is not really practicable to go down to Launceston in a yacht as the river has silted up too much.

North Coast and Hunter Group: While waiting out a westerly blow we visited a winery, had a fleet dinner at the yacht club and re-provisioned. From the Tamar we headed along the Tassie north coast to the Hunter Group of Islands on the NW corner.  These are very remote islands, and the local knowledge of where to anchor was much appreciated. Cruising here is not easy as the anchorages are open to the wind, tide and swell and you must be prepared to keep moving with the weather to get protection, but the effort is worth it. Most of these islands are uninhabited but a few are still run as grazing properties. In 1895 the Kay family, with eight children grazed sheep on nearby Trefoil Island. The parents and two children perished when rowing to the mainland, the other six children, the eldest just 13, watched on then survived alone on the island for six weeks till rescued. Different times.

From the aptly named Cape Grim on the NW cape, the fleet headed down the west coast on the first of two overnight sails. The whole west coast only has two places to stop. Matthew Flinders sailed down this coast in 1798 on the first circumnavigation of Tasmania and didn’t find either of them.  That’s hardly surprising when you imagine sailing an uncharted rocky lee shore with big swells rolling in from the Southern Ocean on a boat that barely sailed to windward with no engine.  I think I would have been keeping a fair way out to sea too!

Macquarie Harbour & Gordon River: First stop is Macquarie Harbour which is reached through the very narrow and potentially rough “Hells Gates”.  You want to arrive here in daylight and the morning of our arrival was uneventfully calm.  Once you pass through the narrow entrance the harbour is huge (20 nm long) and is more like a coastal lake with very little tide.

The town of Strahan gives another opportunity to refuel and reprovision. From here south Tasmania is basically all national park and the scenery is amazing. As well as the convict ruins on Sarah Island and some nice bays to anchor in and explore, the highlight of the visit to Macquarie Harbour was going up the Gordon River.  The tourist cruise out of Strahan goes about 5 miles up the river but a yacht (with 2m draft) can go all the way to the first set of rapids which is about 20 nm. It’s a great experience to motor up the river, the dark tannin stained water reflects the dense forest like a mirror.

At places you need to watch your mast for overhanging trees as you pass through the steep narrow gorge where the famous conservation battle of the “No Dams” protest was fought and won.  Anchors won’t hold on the smooth rock river bed so we moored to a fallen tree.  The next day we went further upstream into the Franklin River in our tender, dragging it up a few small rapids. I’m sure the rafters coming down the Franklin at the end of their one week trip were surprised to see a bunch of yachties going in the other direction and a group of bluewater yachts rafted up.

Port Davey & Bathurst Harbour: After 5 nights in Macquarie Harbour we exited Hells Gates just before sunset. We rested a few hours in Pilot Bay outside the heads, with a perfect view of the lunar eclipse, then we set off at midnight to Port Davey which is 80 nm further South, arriving in the afternoon ahead of a freshening NWer.   The locals suggested we hunker down for the coming gale in Wombat Cove in Bathurst Channel where we found the steel rings bolted to the shore. We tied stern-to and sat very comfortably for 24hrs with 40 kt bullets blasting through the rigging. 

Port Davey, Bathurst Channel and Bathurst Harbour are an absolutely amazing part of Australia and should be on every sailor’s bucket list.  The area is incredibly remote and beautiful.  There are no roads and to walk here takes a week. There is however a bush airstrip, so many walkers only walk one way then fly out. Some boats flew in extra crew who just wanted to see this wilderness area without doing the west coast sailing. 

We spent six nights in Port Davey exploring different anchorages. We made side trips in the tender up a couple of the rivers that flow into the harbour and did some great walks including an all-day climb up Mt Rugby (779m), the highest peak in the area.

After the gale a big high pressure system sat over us for a few days and we experienced stunning blue sky and mirror calm weather.

D’Entrecasteaux Channel: From Port Davey it is a long day sail around the spectacular SW Cape, past Maatsuyker Island and into Recherche Bay for the night. From here the sailing is easy as you make your way north up the D’Entrecasteaux Channel in the shelter of Bruny Island. The Channel is lovely but definitely feels “back to civilisation” compared to the west coast. The Channel reminded me of Pittwater, but 30 miles long with lots of small towns to visit along the way. We had a fleet cricket match and dinner at Port Esperance Sailing Club in Dover and visited the town of Cygnet and the Kermandie Hotel in Port Huon.

The northern end of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel comes out at the Iron Pot at the mouth of the Derwent River and this marked the spot where we crossed our track and completed the circumnavigation. That night we celebrated with the other boats at the Callington Mill whiskey bar overlooking Constitution Dock.

Reflections

On this trip we experienced the whole coast of Tasmania and its islands. We had mostly great summer weather with a few exceptions to remind us we were in Tasmania! I shared the journey with some great mates on the deliveries and the cruise and met lots of new friends on the other boats. If you’ve ever raced to Hobart and wondered what lies beyond Constitution Dock, I’d thoroughly recommend coming back with more time. Tasmania is one of Australia’s great cruising grounds, and a lap of the island is an adventure I’ll never forget.

What you need to do the VDLC

• A comfortable boat – you will be living aboard for over a month.
• Cat 1 safety – that includes a life raft.
• A good anchor –  with plenty of chain (and hopefully a windlass to get it back up).
• Tender with outboard – essential for exploring ashore and to go up the Gordon River (I had an 8 hp).
• Holding Tank – required for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
• Starlink – needed for the daily video call.