Australian Story: Stories of Courage, Determination and Love

By Graham Bauer

In-depth, behind-the-scenes profiles of favourite Australian Story features from the last four years, as chosen by the Australian Story team.
"I am amazed that people remember the smallest details of the stories that have most touched them and which, in a surprising number of cases, have altered their own attitudes and choices in life." Caroline Jones Australian Story is without doubt one of the best-loved shows on the ABC. A cornerstone of Monday night viewing for 15 years, it has brought into our homes and hearts the very personal accounts of our fellow Australians - people both famous and far from famous. With its unique approach and impeccable research, this iconic show represents storytelling at its very best. Australian Story: Stories of courage, determination and love features ten very special Australian Stories from the last four years, selected by the Australian Story team. Much of what is filmed does not make it to air, and author Graham Bauer compellingly brings to life the complete accounts of each of these favourite stories, including insightful updates from the subjects themselves and from the story's producer. the epsiodes chosen for this fourth collection of Australian Stories include the exciting tale of Black Caviar, the Aussie horse that has equalled Phar Lap's record and is the first animal to feature on Australian Story; the incredible seventy-year struggle to recognise the actions of two truly heroic World War II sailors, teddy Sheean and Captain Hec Waller; the dedication of Jan Cameron, a successful businesswomen who now devotes her life to improving the way factory farmed animals are treated in this country; and the powerful story of love, hope and determination between Sally Nielsen and her fiance Sam Goddard, who wakes from his coma for an hour each day in extraordinary circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780730497622

Graham Bauer

Graham Bauer has been a professional writer for almost forty years. As well as being a published author, he has worked in television and in advertising -- in 1997 he won the coveted New York Festivals World Gold Medal for best tv commercial. Graham lives in Sydney with his wife Deborah and spends his leisure time messing about in boats.

Book preview

From left: Nestor Anapi, John Rogers, Captain Pagdialo, Brian McDermott and Alan Saunders. (Australian Story)

EXCALIBUR

PRODUCER BRIGID DONOVAN BROADCAST 5 AND 12 OCTOBER 2009 AS ‘OCEAN OF DOUBT’

It is a little after 9pm on Monday, 16 September 2002. The 16-metre racing yacht Excalibur is roughly 40 kilometres from Seal Rocks, off the New South Wales coast, sailing fast in an ascending gale, under a half moon and broken cloud.

The boat is taking some punishment. It’s designed to handle much worse but this is not a race. It’s a delivery voyage, so it’s not essential to push on with conditions becoming uncomfortable and worse forecast. Excalibur has the wind behind her and is surfing in bursts of around 40 kilometres an hour.

To avoid gear breakage and the risk of injury to his five crew, delivery skipper Brian McDermott has decided to shelter in Port Stephens — three hours distant. He phones the yacht’s owner, radios his intentions to local Marine Rescue, and calls up two blokes to wrestle down a headsail that flogs violently as he spills all power by facing the boat directly into the wind. At this point, the forces being imposed on the boat’s essential structure are minimal. She has all but stopped.

There is a sudden BANG, and in mere moments, the yacht is knocked flat, her masthead in the water. The keel — a weighted underwater fin that, among other things, keeps the boat upright — has snapped off. It takes Brian a moment to absorb the enormity of it. Then he yells.

The two surviving crewmembers differ in their estimates of how long it took Excalibur to completely invert. John Rogers thinks less than ten seconds; McDermott, a bit more. He says, ‘I had time to unclip my harness, inflate my lifejacket and drop into the water. So how long is that?’ It’s what happens to perceptions when one’s actions in the course of a few moments will decide survival or death.

Like a starting gun, that BANG set off a course of events that in turn were desperate, heroic, tragic and miraculous. Subsequently, the cause of the keel’s failure became apparent. The how is understood. But why, and the identity of the person or persons responsible, remain shrouded in an ocean of doubt.

VISION

The two Australian Story episodes relating Excalibur’s tale were introduced by Jesse Martin, who famously completed a solo circumnavigation at the age of seventeen. Martin was fortunate in that he did not experience the full extremes of oceanic weather, but during his voyage he certainly encountered gales similar to that confronted by Excalibur.

Jesse’s yacht Lionheart was much smaller, but in terms of surviving heavy weather he had the edge. Lionheart was vastly less powerful and built for endurance rather than speed. His keel extended for much of the underwater length of the boat and was integral to its structure — unlike Excalibur’s. Hers was a deep, narrow foil attached to the underside of the hull, extending to a heavy torpedo-like bulb at the base. This configuration delivers hydrodynamic efficiency and concentrates the weight down deep, providing stability that enables the boat to harness enormous drive. But as it extends only around a metre fore and aft, the stresses at the point where it joins the boat are extreme.

Excalibur was the dream of Alan Saunders, a successful and well-regarded Melbourne-based businessman. ‘We wanted to build a really fast racing boat,’ he says. ‘It’s just the boy racer in me, I guess. And the challenge is trying to make things go faster. The ultimate aim for Excalibur was to compete and do well in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.’

One suspects it was a bit more than that. On camera, Saunders presents as a phlegmatic character, very much in control of his emotions. His answers to questions were considered and frank and conveyed in a tone bordering on flat. Yet the back story suggests a man of passion and charisma.

Saunders wanted his boat to be anything but ‘staid’. He envisioned a beautiful, bold, visually striking yacht, which would draw attention and admiration. He also wanted to boost the waning prestige of his cherished club, the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron. Basing a big-race winner there would make a difference.

Countless hours were spent with an impeccably credentialled firm of naval architects drawing clean, impressive lines that would make the vessel look fast even when she was standing still, backed by engineering that would enable her to race in severe weather. The future coronial inquest held no doubt concerning integrity of design.

As the project took shape, much thought also went into the way that the dream would be presented. Choosing a name for a 16-metre showpiece typically is vexing. What swayed Saunders was the length of what yachties call a ‘prodder’ — a retractable spar that extends forward from the bow and anchors the leading edge of a huge spinnaker. It reminded Alan of a sword. He says, ‘The name Excalibur really was because it had a 4.5-metre carbon fibre pole out the front and we wanted something to indicate that it was speedy and strong and like the knights of old, basically. Big, powerful, strong.’

Saunders’s daughter Lauren became involved in styling the yacht, choosing an approach and colours in tune with her presumption that this was her father’s midlife crisis. Unashamed flair was called for. She recalls thinking, ‘Most men go and buy a fancy car when they have a midlife crisis. My dad wanted to build a boat. There were long discussions about the name and the colours. I think the blue and the yellow was something that Dad and I ended up coming up with together in the end, and the design was something that hadn’t been seen on any boat. All the boats in Victoria generally have white hulls, and … boring coloured sails, and the blue and the yellow stood out. The size of the boat stood out. Everything about Excalibur was to stand out.’

The budget was around a million dollars. This figure might sound extravagant to the landlocked, but at the upper end of competitive yachting, it’s modest. To cap the project at this cost, Alan and friends would have to build as much of the boat as they could themselves. Doubtless Saunders had to be persuasive when presenting the idea to his wife Auriol, who says, ‘I was sold on the concept because the dream for me was spending time with our friends in the future. I’d been promised trips to New Zealand and going up, to do the northern races, and all the fun that we were going to have in the end, so I sort of blinked past the work.’ Her husband could have his toy. Auriol’s agreement is all the more remarkable because big racing yachts do not have spacious, private cabins, marbled bathrooms and gourmet kitchens. They are spartan. Discarding unnecessary weight is essential to competitiveness. It is such an obsession that crews of hardcore ocean-racing yachts even cut their toothbrushes in half to save weight. Nonetheless, a graceful, wickedly fast trophy-winning yacht has its own kind of romantic appeal.

That was the vision. A yacht capable of winning the Sydney to Hobart, a project binding a loyal crew of friends, envy in the eyes of fellow sailors, shelves weighed down with trophies, fast passage-making to exotic destinations, and prestige for the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron — all sensationally giftwrapped. As crewmember John Rogers says, ‘The look of Excalibur was different to anything I’d ever raced on and different to pretty much most other boats that were on Port Phillip Bay at the time. It was a whole new class of