Hey Tom, and Larry,

...Only thing that surprised me a bit about this incident, was that he was as close to the coast as he was... but who knows, perhaps he was making for a port at the time?

Apparently, W Australia has been seeing a lot of weather and very heavy sea conditions over the past few weeks. I've seen parts of that coastline, and have also been down to Cape Leeuwin, and the part of the Australian Bight along the Great Ocean Road E of Melbourne... It is an amazing coast, and the power of those ocean swells from both the Indian and Southern Oceans has to be seen to be believed... And, much of that shoreline is composed of vertical cliff faces that reflect the waves back out to sea. Sounds like that was the case in the very remote region where Sanders had his trouble. I've experienced something similar along the S coast of Newfoundland, the reflection of the seas off the rocky coast can create a truly miserable sea state, even in fairly benign conditions, so it's not hard to imagine what Sanders might have been dealing with could be appalling, and that's why I was a bit surprised that he was as close to the coast as he was...

A bit more info about the boat from a poster on SA... another poster added she was in pretty poor condition, rust stains on the hull, etc...

"Yeah, I recognise the boat. "SeaFox", a modified van de stadt 40' previously owned by the late Hans Vos in Darwin, on it's way to Fremantle for the new owner. Hans redid the rig and changed the interior to make it a 2 person cruiser, but his wife didn't enjoy sailing so Hans got very little use out of it. He took it in the Darwin Ambon Race in 2011 and had a rough trip home."

Here's a pic of the coast along the Great Ocean Road, not hard to imagine the confused return of the reflected waves that shoreline might produce...

best regards,

Jon