Tat-Ta Triana

This short article was essentially written for the locals who, as occurs in any small community subscribe to the "hear no evil, speak no evil" mindset, but I figure fellow members of this forum, who have been so helpful over many issues, would be interested.

I built Triana, a 22' trimaran from scratch over a three year period, the materials alone costing $25,000 (not counting my labour). Late last year, Triana, was refitted, relaunched and relocated onto a newly laid swing mooring at Basin View in the beautiful St George's Basin of NSW.

Last Friday, after seven weeks of other comittments and bad weather, I got back there, only to find the two amas floating in the water at the mooring. There was no sign of the Vaka - the one with the mast, outboard motor and all the other expensive bits of gear. Shock? That would be serious understatement. There is no way it could have sunk unassisted due to extensive patching of the outer glass sheathing, plenty of scope on the mooring chain and headrope, plus the inclusion of two new automatic bilge pumps

Investigation of the remains was fairly easy because the depth was under 2 metres. I located the pulpit and foredeck, but was puzzled at not feeling the rise of deck to the mast base and the cabin. My diving mask had gone, but a bit of free diving and some digging around soon proved that entire deck, cockpit, stern arch and outboard were missing, along with new sails, new fridge and all other items of value. Also, the boat had been BURNT to the waterline and the remains were settling into the soft seabed.

A neighbour later told me he had see the new mooring being laid and the boat arriving at the mooring. One week or so later, only the floating amas remained visible. Naturally, no one else had "seen anything"but there was a history of theft in the area, also one particular individual who had cut previous mooring in the area. Call the police? For what result? Insurance? There wasn't any. Try insuring a trimaran in NSW!

Simply to remove them from the water, the amas were beached and loaded onto the trailer. When I get back with diving gear, I'll try to recover the mast (burnt and bent from the heat of the fire) and anything else that might be salvagable, though the value of these items will minimal.

In summary, anyone in the St Georges Basin area hearing of someone selling yacht fitting at cheap prices might call the police. The identifiable items include:

New dacron headsail approx 10 metres on the luff, with SAILTECK logo plus hand-applied UV strip on the leach and foot
As new Italian high-teck F18 mainsail with small rip near the foot
1970's model 6 Hp Evinrude 2-stroke outboard in good working order
2 X 40W solar panels
New (unused) EVACOOL RV 25 litre fridge with slightly scratched paint on sides
New (unused) Porta-potti
2 X Barient 30 chromed/bronze winches plus chromed winch handle
Mainsheet blocks & sheet
Deck organisers
7X50 Binoculars
Night vision Monocular
Garmin GPS Map 60

Assistance from anyone with information might not help me, but might help prevent this piece of excrement from a similar performance elsewhere

Alan Loveard 0418 230562

 

Sad news and strange why not just steal the boat complete and strip it elsewhere?

 

I'm sorry to hear about this-I hope you find the scumbag responsible! I hope you can work out some solution for yourself...... Thinking more about this I can't even conceive of my reaction to something so utterly senseless happening to a boat I just built. I wish you the best.....

 

sorry to hear that Alan

 

It is a closed area of water, with not too many places to hide it. The new mooring was in a fairly isolated part of the basin within wading distance from the land. Conjecture is that a guy living right next to the little beach could have been responsible - he is the one who allegedly had cut moorings.

I figure the burning was not deliberate, but caused by ripping out the switchboard, causing the hot wires from the battery to short out and burn the surrounding materials. Every piece of wiring I could see had burned back to the copper. There is no way an installation fault could have cause this - everything was properly sheathed and the circuit breakers would have stopped any fault in any of the peripherals. Only the bilge pump circuit was left on.