There’s been a happy ending to the saga of Jeff Sutton’s yacht Wyuna 1, which has been beached near Elements at North Belongil since early May, after being damaged in heavy weather.
After threats from the authorities to destroy the boat and heavily fine the owner, a GoFundMe campaign raised almost $13,000, mostly from locals, to get the yacht moving again.
This Echo report explains the string of misfortunes that led to the boat becoming stuck.
In the end it was a combination of an excavator on the beach to dig out the keel and push the yacht, combined with a powerful tugboat, that got the Wyuna 1 floating again. GoFundMe organiser Daniel Rawson reports that the yacht has now safely reached the Tweed River.
Joint effort pays off, thanks to community
Mr Rawson’s Saturday GoFundMe post offered ‘big thanks to everyone that was involved. Well done, that was some awesome community spirit coming together for our ocean brother seafarer wild man Jeff Sutton!
‘Big thanks to Matt Tree for all the efforts with the excavator etc and finding that awesome tug. Steven for endless communication and keeping the grubberment away, Dr Charles with the driving all over to get supplies and for his experience, Ben for his courageous line mission and looking out for Jeff endlessly… and to Travis who was up fixing the RIB boat engine until 2am and to all the donors and anyone else I haven’t mentioned yew!
‘The tug came down from Jacob’s Well on Friday and was scheduled to pull it out with the high tide, but lost the line, so they moored at Julian Rocks and waited for the morning high tide. The Byron Surf Life Saving Club aided in their inflatable pulling out the line to tug and off she went around 12pm today.
‘Jeff ended up paying around $30k for the tug, plus rental and purchase of the supplies, excavator fuel, and also a big cost was to have the Arakwal kindly overlook the operation on indigenous land.
‘Jeff isn’t a shipwrecked, maybe a little more broke, but overall and elated man!! If you feel to send him some donations to keep him going, he will surely be ever thankful to this awesome community!! He was saying, “it wouldn’t have happened anywhere else. This community has heart. The government didn’t get to chop her up, we won!! Thanks Byron!!”
‘Regards the Byron backyard salvage team!!’
A short YouTube video showing the salvage operation can be seen below:
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