(iv) The Ketch with a Billion Dollar View
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
Note: This is the fourth in a series based on the Susan Blythe Neill-Fraser murder case. The version submitted to UTAS and The Age Investigations team was not well written and thus like all good snippets of my head… it has been rewritten and is published here. I hope you enjoy the series: part 4 is 603 words long.
The northern end of Sandy Bay arcs from Short Beach, where the Four Winds was first noticed sinking in the early hours, around to Battery Point, a historic suburb of almost equal affluence. On the peak of Battery Point, at the intersection of Napoleon Street, Trumpeter Street and Marine Terrace, single vehicle access through Derwent Lane leads down to a small brown gravel carpark surrounded by a knee-high chain-link fence. This is Purdon Featherstone Reserve. The carpark leads onto the middle, and largest, of three wooden jetties preceded by a small black-on-white council sign that reads “Gross Load Limit 10 t”. The jetties are surrounded by mooring buoys.
In late January, 2009 the Four Winds was as visible and accessible from this point as it was from Short Beach where Susan Blythe Neill-Fraser had pulled the small white and blue dinghy across the sand at 2pm on Australia Day. The Four Winds was a distinctive 53 foot long ketch with a white painted steel hull and unpainted steel masts, waist high guardrails and dark blue sails. The ketch was segregated into seven compartments by five watertight bulkheads, each compartment monitored by 12 volt water sensors with loud alarms. It also had two bilge pumps set to automatic.
Painted across her stern was ‘Four Winds’ in blue floral text above the registration number.
For the uninitiated, a ketch is a double masted vessel similar to a schooner but its rear “mizzen” mast is shorter than the main mast; where the schooner has the opposite arrangement. The ketch is a popular distance cruising design that offers greater stability and control in volatile weather.
When the rowing coach saw the Four Winds in trouble he helped nearby uniformed police officers investigate with a dinghy. They saw blood drops on the Four Winds’ step, later shown in forensic photographs as diluted by marine police who arrived 30 minutes later. The constable entered the boat in ankle deep water and saw the key in the ignition, a carving knife and a torch. He called out, but there was no reply. The two bilge pumps were switched on but not working.
