Cootacraft takes French TV journalists on wild ride to Mallacoota

At one point of the journey the pair braved 6.0-metre standing waves as the owner of Cootacraft, Mark the Russian, drove them on an almost 100 nautical mile round trip from Eden to do a news piece on the fires – and koala rescuer Patrick Boyle, who also happens to be a Cootacraft apprentice – for French TV.

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“When the fires were here, the only way to Mallacoota was via water,” Mark told boatsales.com.au. “I had a call from Eden saying they [the French journalists] were desperate to come to Mallacoota to do a story on the fires and the rescue of the koalas and stuff, so I went and fetched them.”

Mark said the trip out to Malacoota started well in 20-25 knot winds, with the 300hp Mercury Pro XS outboard engine-powered Villain sitting around 40mph (64kmh) across the water for most of the trip.

“It was unreal,” Mark said. “The boat absolutely loved it.”

However, the trip back took a dramatic turn – for the French journalists, at least.

“We were expecting conditions to stay like that [25-knot winds] all day,” Mark said. “As always, the weather bureau got it a little bit wrong and I had to coast all the way from Eden to Cape Howe (on the NSW/Victorian border) and there was nowhere to go.

“We had to go straight into close to 45-47 knot gusting winds off Gabo Island. I rang up my missus and asked what was the go and she said ‘yes, it’s gusting’.”

Despite the atrocious conditions, the Cootacraft Villain – aside from regularly running wide offshore to go spearfishing it will spend the odd weekend racing, and has even won its class – made it to Gabo Island, where Mark said they faced white water as far as they could see between the island and the mainland.

“We were going to go around Gabo but it was against the tide and there was about, I don’t know, 18-foot, 20-foot standing waves from the lighthouse, and the [French journalists] just s**t themselves,” Mark said.

“They wanted to go back to the lee of Gabo Island and jump onto the rocks and stay on the rocks until the weather came good, and I went ‘well, it’s only going to get worse, around 50-55 knots maybe’.

“So I said I could see a gap there, I’ve been through here a thousand times, don’t panic because the hull can handle it.

“We’re only going to cop a couple of greenies (waves of green water over the bow) at the worst of it.

“Iron Prince, Gunshot Reef, they were breaking as far as you could see.”

Mark said he was then able to run parallel to the beach to Gabo Island, aiming for The Gut – the body of water between the island and the mainland.

“I knew that if you run straight towards Gabo the water wouldn’t be as big or super choppy, and it wasn’t too bad.

“But on the other side of Gabo we had to go across The Gut and there was the south-wester coming straight through there.

“Once we crossed The Gut, yeah, it didn’t really matter how big they [the waves] were, you just climb them and go down – it wasn’t too bad.”

The wild ride was even captured on video.

Mark said he believed the French journalists had never experienced seas in that state.

“One bloke wasn’t too bad, he wanted the story bad,” he said. “But the other bloke, he just gave in. I told him to sit on the bean bag and sit back and hold on – he would be fine.

“By the time we got to Mallacoota he was all sorts of different colours … it’s not their job to be in a sea state like that so it was probably a bit scary.”

Cootacraft is slowly winding back up after the East Gippsland fires threatened Mallacoota in late December.

At one stage the business took the unusual step of taking all its boat moulds down to the boat ramp, and hooking them up to lines so a boat could pull them into the water where they would sink, allowing him to recover them once any fire front had passed.

Mark said the business was lucky to survive the ordeal. “After the fires, we came here straight away after the main [fire] front hit, and I go ‘wow, it [the factory] is still standing’.

“I ran out the back of the shop and everything’s on fire except my block – all my neighbours’ blocks are on fire.

“So we started putting their fires out, and that took us another 14 hours.”

Mark said the worst thing about the fire was that the workshop had lost power a couple of days before the fire struck.

“I couldn’t get any ice in my Esky, so I had to drink the warmest Corona [beer] that you’ve ever had,” he said.

“I looked at the clock and it’s one o’clock in the morning and the Corona is about 50 degrees, and I’m still drinking it.

“I was just so happy that I hadn't lost any boats, any moulds, any engines and the workshop was still standing.”

Mark said while the fire threat was still around, Mallacoota should be safe.

“We’ve still got fires across the lake [Lake Mallacoota], which means every morning we still wake up to a lot of smoke,” he said.

“There is still a fire threat on the other side of the lake … it’s not out yet.

“Mallacoota is safe because there’s nothing else here left to burn.”