Jul-Aug 2012 Issue - the Aberdeen Boat Club

P.29
Opposite Page: The desert meets the sea: Jungle Jane at Shark Bay, Cape Peron, Western Australia Top Left: Jungle Jane at the Lancelin, WA jetty. One cannot
imagine a place less like Hong Kong! Top Right: Dirk Hartog Island’s outermost point, Shark Bay Bottom: The Ningaloo Reef, comparable with the Great Barrier Reef
I
have always admired the Western Australian-designed
crayfishing boats. These boats operate in very tough conditions
off the southern WA coast. They need to be fast, strong and
seaworthy to enable the fishermen to pull in their pots early
and get home by the time the sea breeze fills in. In Perth, this
‘breeze,’ called the Fremantle Doctor, is caused by the massive
daily transfer of air between the Indian Ocean and the Western
Australian desert. North of Perth, WA, it’s not uncommon for
the Fremantle Doctor to come in at over 30 knots, day after day,
during the summer fishing season.
So Western Australia is where my wife and I went to find our
first motor boat. After four months of investigation, we secured
the vessel Jungle Jane, a West Coast 65. For 20 years, she
had been fishing out of Lancelin, a small fishing town between
sea and dunes, 130 km north of Perth. Whilst a bit worse for
wear from a cosmetic point of view, she had a new low-hours
Caterpillar V12 1,000 h.p. engine, was structurally very sound, and
had a huge cockpit for entertaining. She was capable of cruising
at 18 knots, with a top speed of 23 knots.
We left Fremantle, Perth’s harbour, at the end of March in
perfect weather for the day trip north to Lancelin. The three crew
were Ed Bell, who will look after the boat for me in Hong Kong,
Mac Greer, an old South Australian friend, and myself. After
loading stores, spares and fuel (5,000 litres in total, giving a range
of 1,400nm) we set off for Geraldton, WA, 150 miles north. Ray
Dunstan, the seller of the boat, came along for the first leg. We