Three months after he lost his boat, which had drifted about 1600km, an Australian soldier has been reunited with it, thanks to HMAS Perth and a lot of luck.
Warrant Officer Class Two (WO2) Carl Stanley was out for a fishing trip with mates on April 26 when engine trouble left them stranded nearly 100km off Dundee beach in the Northern Territory.
A commercial fishing vessel retrieved the soldiers but WO2 Stanley could only watch as his Polycraft Frontier, nicknamed Plastic Fantastic, capsized and sank out of sight.
"The tow line snapped, so one of us dived in to re-attach a heavier line, but while doing so it flipped and the fishing vessel skipper made the call, 'It's sinking, we've gotta leave it'," WO2 Stanley said.
"We thought it would have floated, being a plastic hull, but obviously it didn't."
Nearly three months later, while on patrol more than 800km from Darwin, the crew of HMAS Perth was given an unrelated task to recover a craft washed up on a reef.
Chief Bosun Chief Petty Officer Glen Nipperess said while recovering a boat was unusual for an Anzac-class ship, after some reconnaissance and planning they agreed it could be done.
"Once we realised it was serviceable and could be towed, we put a plan together and once that was all good to go we went over, connected it to the RHIB (rigid-hull inflatable boat) and recovered it," he said.
As the origin of the vessel was unknown, quarantine requirements meant the vessel would have to be returned to Darwin and destroyed.
Theories circulated on board Perth about the craft's origins.
"Most people thought it had snapped its moorings during a storm in Darwin, but it had a lot of barnacles so it looked like it had been at sea for a while," Chief Petty Officer Nipperess said.
The rumours were soon put to rest when Perth's executive officer Lieutenant Commander Gemma Casserly got an email from an excited WO2 Carl Stanley.
"He received a call from Maritime Rescue Australia, who had cross-referenced the registration, and he sent me an email saying 'Hey, I heard you might have my boat on your boat, can I have it back please?'," Lieutenant Commander Casserly said.
The boat was handed back to its much-relieved owner at Kuru Wharf on July 29, along with a mock invoice for costs incurred during recovery.
"When the commanding officer came, he asked if I got the invoice," WO2 Stanley said.
"I was in a bit of a state of disbelief. I couldn't fathom that it had drifted so far, and of all the vessels to recover it, it was HMAS Perth."
Despite considerable barnacle growth, the hull was in good condition, according to WO2 Stanley.
"A few scratches, but that's all. Its plastic, it's obviously extremely robust. It bounced alongside the reef for who knows how long as well," he said.
"I think it convinced a couple of Navy blokes to go buy Polycraft boats now."
With plans in motion to refurbish the hull, Plastic Fantastic is destined to sail the seas once again.
