By Jim Fagan
It was 4am on Thursday, May 18, and Patrick Odore was happily sleeping at his home in Sunshine Beach, unaware that in an hour he would be battling, in pitch blackness, rough five metre high waves and pummelling 45 to 50 knot south easterlies on Coast Guard Noosa cutter, John Waddams.
And be on his way to being awarded the National Commodore’s Gold Award for heroism and becoming the first volunteer in the Noosa flotilla to receive it twice as well as joining the elite club of dual winners in the Coast Guard movement throughout Australia!
Patrick’s crew, John Bamworth, Gary Fletcher and Michael Birch, were also telephoned that night—a man had been swept overboard from the stern of a fishing trawler at Barwon Bank, a well-known fishing area, and they were needed.
By 5am they were crossing the Noosa River bar and it took them nearly three hours in the atrocious conditions to cover the 45kms to reach the trawler.
“When the trawler skipper heard the man had disappeared, he immediately dropped life jackets,” Patrick told Noosa Today. “When we arrived, we then joined him and the Water Police in a search pattern that covered nearly eight square kilometres.
“We searched until fading light but, unfortunately, we didn’t find the man. All we found were the life jackets.”
Part of the crew’s citation reads: “Congratulations on an outstanding display of seamanship and dedication were given by the Water Police who said, ‘We were having difficulties in our brand new 25 metre patrol boat and were constantly surprised to see that vessel less than half our size and manned by volunteers was able to continue the search in such conditions.
“’It made us realise how much Australia relied upon the dedication of volunteers who could always be relied on to perform their duties in the most of difficult of situations.’”
French by birth, Patrick (67) came from Marseille to live Noosa in 1988. “My father had a 10-metre boat and I spent a lot of younger days on the water. I thought of joining the Coast Guard but felt it might cost too much.
“One day I was at Noosa Woods and I was asked to buy a ticket in a Coast Guard raffle. I got talking and, when I heard everyone was a volunteer, I set about joining.
“That was 20 years ago and I’ve loved every minute.”
Patrick’s first National Gold Certificate was awarded for the rescue of three crew members from the 14-metre yacht, Ausmaid, on April 7, 2009.
A dual Sydney to Hobart handicap winner, Ausmaid was a few miles south of Double island Point sailing in extremely bad weather about 1.30pm when a huge wave, estimated at 10-11metres high rolled her over, breaking her mast
The skipper was injured and, when she righted herself, the crew called for help. A helicopter was sent out for the skipper and Patrick and his crew left on the John Waddams to save the two crew members.
“I was shopping with my wife Sharon when I got the call. When we got there, we got a tow line to them to take them to safer water at Laguna Bay but the helicopter pilot asked if I wanted the crew taken off. I agreed as we had a very bad following sea and no communication.
“We resumed our tow but the weather closed in and I decided to take the Ausmaid to Little Cove but our troubles weren’t over yet.
“As we prepared to anchor the tow line parted, injuring one of our crew members. We anchored the yacht and took the crew man back to headquarters at Munna Point where an ambulance was waiting.”
Sadly, it wasn’t a happy ending for the Ausmaid. The next morning Patrick found the yacht wasn’t in the bay but had been found on North Shore beach. One of the flukes on her anchor had bent and she had been dragged off her seabed.
“When I saw her, she was sitting upright on the sand and I realised her keel was broken. My heart sunk and I had a lump in my throat to see such a beautiful boat in such a sorry state.”
The bravery of the four Coast Guard Noosa volunteers who went to the aid of a crew member swept overboard from a fishing trawler off Barwon Bank in May was recognised at a flotilla meeting at Munna Point headquarters on Monday night.
