Six people were sailing five boats on Queens Lake Wednesday evening at about 7pm when the wind speed jumped from two knots to 29 knots.

President of the Queens Lake Sailing Club, Dave Castleton, said the boats capsized when the “southerly buster” swept through. The club’s own rescue boat was in the water, as usual to monitor sailors, but was unable to render assistance.

“Capsizing happens in sailing, that’s why we have a rescue boat, but our motor seized,” Dave said.

“We are grateful for the assistance of the Camden Haven SES. They towed the rescue boat back to the club and collected the sailors which were waiting to be towed by our rescue boat.

“The motor was brand new, so we are pretty disappointed it broke down.”

Concerned residents in the vicinity of the lake also contacted police, who attended the sailing club. 

There was no report of injuries.

The Camden Haven SES also assisted residents of a St Alban’s Way home after a tree fell damaging the roof and a car parked nearby.

Deputy unit controller Gordon Hutchison said the fallen tree broke several tiles on the roof and caused significant damage to the car.

The SES worked at the address from around 9pm until 2am clearing the tree and securing tarpaulins to the roof of the house.

“We [the SES volunteers] had been taking down the Santa decorations [which adorn the shop awnings of businesses in the Camden Haven at Christmas] and thought it was going to be a quiet night,” Gordon said.

“It ended up being a busy one for the crew.”

While the SES was hard at work, Essential Energy crews were responding to a blackout which cut electricity to homes in Kew, Lakewood, Laurieton and West Haven area.

1,700 Essential Energy customers were affected by an unplanned outage from 7.20pm. 

“Crews responded immediately and patrolled powerlines locating a blown pothead – which is where the underground network meets the overhead network,” a spokesperson said.

“Essential Energy was able to re-route power to return supply to 850 customers at 9.15pm and to the majority of remaining customers at 10pm. 

“67 customers remain without power due to the fault, with crews onsite continuing with repairs. 

“We hope to have power back on today and will provide an update to customers, via text message, once we can confirm the time when power will be restored.

“As well as this outage, 1,200 customers were without power in Wauchope for an hour from 9.10pm last night due to a tree falling on a powerline, and 900 customers in the Kings Creek area lost power from 8.40pm – midnight when a tree fell over powerlines in Sarahs Crescent, Kings Creek.”

If customers have any questions regarding these outages they can call Essential Energy on 13 20 80.