As they scroll through videos of Brisbane homes being flooded and losing power, Laurence Alexander and Gabrielle Caulfield feel they are probably better off than people living in houses. Their home is a 36-foot Catalina sloop called Rhino which, on Monday morning, is sheltering on the Brisbane River from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred as the storm continues to cause havoc across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.
Rhino, which they had planned to sail from Yamba in NSW to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, has its own generator, a gas stove and tanks that hold 300 litres of water.
“I’ve seen all these posts of people saying: ‘We’ve got no power and water is coming in’,” Alexander says. “Well, we have power and we’re floating.”
However, Alexander, a military veteran, is well aware the pair face a different set of dangers from most householders. For example, they are keeping a close eye on announcements about any water releases from the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams.
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