Under the Stars with John Thompson
By Matt Coleborne
It was dinner time when the call came through—of course it was.
We were all just sitting down with our families, plates warm, when the tasking came: a 33-foot flybridge cruiser named Hustle was drifting offshore in 100 metres of water. Out of fuel. Two people aboard. The sun was nearly gone, and we were chasing its final rays as we scrambled down to PS31.
Skipper Robert Johnson led the crew: Howard Faulks, Mark Page, Andy Wilson, and myself. We launched under the last glow of daylight, the sky bleeding orange as we pushed past the marina into rolling swell—2.5 to 3 metres and confused. It wasn’t long before we were in the thick of it, waves coming from multiple directions, spray over the bow, and the Heads behind us disappearing into the dark.
The plan was simple: locate Hustle, get a tow line on, and bring her home. In theory, that’s a textbook job. In reality? Not this night.
No Light, No Horizon, Just Motion
Howard took over from Robert at the helm as we pushed into open water. He’d already been plotting Hustle’s drift and worked out we had at least 90 minutes before intercept. The timing put us well past sunset, and worse—this was a new moon. Just 1% illumination. We weren’t just operating at night. We were operating in absolute pitch black. The kind of dark that makes you forget which way is up.
The stars were extraordinary. But there’s no horizon in starlight. No frame of reference. Just the swell, the spray, and the steady thump of the Yanmars.
I was in the forward port seat keeping a lookout, shouting “Wave!” each time a big one reared up. At Howard’s request, I adjusted settings on the helm—dimming navigation, changing configs—while he never once took his eyes off the sea. That was my first real sense of how mentally locked-in you need to be to helm in those conditions. Even an experienced Coxswain couldn’t afford a glance downward.
At one point, unsure where a menu setting was buried, I asked Howard. “Can’t help,” he said, without missing a beat. “Gotta watch the front.” Seconds later, Robert appeared behind me, quietly adjusting the settings without fanfare. That quiet competence—the ability to just know when and where you’re needed—was something I’d clock again later.
We used the searchlight to paint the wave tops, helping Howard read what was coming head-on. But the swell on our starboard side kept us guessing. Every few seconds I was calling out “Wave!”—so often it felt redundant. The roof began leaking with the volume of water over the top. Saltwater dripped onto our heads. Occasionally, seabirds shot through the beam like ghost missiles, catching us off guard. Out here, nothing made sense to the senses.
Target Acquired
By 1930 hours we believed we were within 5–6 nautical miles of Hustle. We activated our red and blue emergency lights in the hopes they’d spot us. They didn’t.
At 2006 hours we had visual contact, GPS locked at 32° 55.61’ S, 152° 08.34’ E—about 30km east of Newcastle. Closing in was slow work. The drift. The swell. The dark.
Now came the challenge: setting up a tow line in a sea that tossed us like dice in a cup.
Andy and I moved to the rear deck. Harnessed in, lights on, soaked within seconds from the spray. When Andy reached into the locker to grab flashlights and tethers, a lurch of the boat slammed the drawer closed on his fingers. A rough start to what would become an even rougher 20 minutes.
Howard positioned us a few hundred metres off Hustle. The process began: tow line to soft shackle, to sacrificial, to heaving line. Andy was the thrower. I was there to hold him—literally. Even though we were tethered, I grabbed his harness, reassuring him, “I’ve got you, mate.”
Hustle lit up their deck. One crew member crouched precariously on the bow, waiting. “Make it count,” Howard called over the comms. “We’ve got one shot.”
But the approach was too wide—the sea bucking us just out of reach. A miss.
Howard peeled us off. Reset.
This is when PS31 stopped feeling like a 12-tonne rescue vessel and started feeling like a cork bobbing in the middle of a black ocean. Hustle’s deck lights shrank to specks. We couldn’t see land. Couldn’t orient. Only our blue and red strobe lights flickering off whitecaps gave us some sense of where we were.
The Throw That Nearly Broke Us
The second pass was perfect.
Andy nailed the throw—textbook form, beautiful arc—and just as it reached the apex, the wind howled and stole it. Gone. Line in the water.
Howard made a split-second call: “We’re backing up.”
The Yanmars roared. From where Andy and I stood, directly above them, we could feel their heat and fury. Then I looked aft—and saw it.
A wall of water. A wave so big it blocked everything behind it.
We were backing straight into it.
The moment it hit, green water flooded the deck up to my knees. I felt myself lifted—my feet no longer on the floor. We instinctively grabbed each other. Our four points of contact were each other, not the boat.
Then—Robert. Out of nowhere. One hand on the overhead handrail, the other wrapped around my tether line. Calm. Anchored. Precise.
He pulled me up and said, “Just remember—you volunteered for this.” And grinned. Of course, somehow, his shoes were still dry.
The throw that followed wasn’t robbed. Andy got it dead centre. Hustle’s crew secured the line. 2027 hours: “DV under tow” was finally called into the Base.
And Then the Tow Broke
An hour and a half later, around 10pm, the tow bridle snapped.
No one was surprised. The conditions were brutal, and Hustle was a heavy boat to drag through confused swell. Still—we were ready. Mark, who’d been calmly managing comms and sitreps from the navigation station all night, now stepped onto the back deck and into the action. Within 14 minutes, we had a fresh bridle rigged and launched—Mark’s throw was clean, confident, and on target. Textbook execution in anything-but-textbook conditions.
By now I was spent. I grabbed water for myself and Andy—and the moment I leaned down, the seasickness hit. I puked over the side. And again. Three more times before we reached inside waters. At one point, I forgot to lift my comms mic. So yes, I broadcast my heaving to the crew. Mark made sure I wouldn’t forget that.
Home Stretch
At 2345 hours, we finally slipped into the quiet of Shoal Bay. The swell eased, but the night wasn’t ready to let us go just yet. We shortened the tow—down to 40 metres—and began hauling in line, metre by painstaking metre. My arms felt like timber. Shoulders aching. Howard, Andy, and I moved in silence, working with the muscle memory that only exhaustion creates.
But we weren’t done. Not even close.
Outside the marina, the current ran strong—3 to 4 knots punching sideways across our bow. We were fighting water again. Even here, even now, the sea would not yield to us. Rafting Hustle alongside John Thompson meant battling for control of two boats at once in the dark, in a moving river of tide. What should have taken minutes stretched out like everything else that night—longer, harder, slower.
But inch by inch, rope by rope, we brought them together. Hustle nestled against us, finally calm, finally close.
At 0018 hours, she was secured at the D’Albora fuel wharf. Waiting on the dock: our Unit Commander. Rope in hand. Still and steady, like the shoreline itself.
And by 0030 hours, some six hours after we had left the safety of the marina, John Thompson (PS31) was home again. Quiet. Salt-washed. Lights low. He had carried us through chaos and current, darkness and doubt.
And now, gently resting against the dock, he let us go.
As I stepped off the deck, soaked, aching, and grateful, I heard Robert’s voice again in my head—steady as ever:
“Just remember… you volunteered for this.”
And in that moment, I knew exactly why.
Reflections from the Dock
This was, without question, the most intense tow and hook-up I’ve experienced.
But more than that—it felt like the full stop at the end of a sentence I’d been writing for six months.
Everything I’d learned—on Saturday morning drills, in quiet conversations with senior crew, and in the humbling early days of just trying to keep up—was called on that night. And somehow, it was all there when I needed it.
I learned that experience doesn’t always speak loudly. Sometimes it’s a quiet hand on a tether. A throw made under pressure. A nod instead of an order.
That mental focus under pressure can carry you just as far as brute strength—and often farther.
That even in the pitch black, when you can’t see land or sky or where the next wave is coming from, you’re not alone. There’s always someone beside you, watching your back, and ready to pull you upright.
But what stood out most? The crew. The way we moved, adjusted, supported. No drama. No panic. Just five people, all-in, doing what needed to be done.
I stepped off John Thompson that night soaked, aching, and a few weeks shy of my formal crew rating. But in every way that matters, I reckon I earned it out there. Not just because of the conditions—but because of who I was standing beside.
