It has been a while since I shared some of our sailing experiences. Sit
back, relax, and enjoy :)
On our current journey, we have the great pleasure of delivering a Leopard
44 from Cape Town to Seychelles. 1st Mate Malcolm Rennie originally from
Port Shepstone, residing in Knysna for the last 15 years, born in '47 and
who has done six deliveries with me. As crew young gun Joshua Palmer from
Margate who was born in '97, is doing his first long distance ocean
crossing. He sailed for a year or so in the Caribbean on Blue Diamond, his
parent's yacht. Myself as skipper.
We received our boat on Wednesday, 4 February, and took her around to our
allocated berth in the V&A Marina. We started immediately with preventative
maintenance for our journey, and also did a shopping spree to get all our dry
provisions. Thursday we moved all our safety equipment on board, and on Friday
we had our safety inspection. We would have to wait until Wednesday the
following week for our safety certificate, and I decided to fly back to Durban
again to attend to a little crisis there. My daughter's red breasted, yellow
sided conure flew away and my princess was heartbroken. I arrived back home on
Friday night, and Saturday morning launched a search for the little bird, who
has recently joined our family and crept into all our hearts. Cheeky Tweety is
his name, and an apt name to say the least. A small parrot with a huge
personality as conures are. My daughter and myself walked a few kilometres
calling for the bird, hoping he would hear us and either come flying to us, or
make some noise that we would recognise. Before that my wife, friends, my mom,
all placed ads on all the different media platforms. It was four five days since
Tweety flew away. His one wing was clipped, but still he managed to get
airborne. Prospects were looking bleak, but I refused to give up hope. My
daughter decided to side with me on the issue, and also believed against all
odds that we will find him. And then a small miracle happened. We received a
call one afternoon, and a lady informed me that they have our little birdie. I
could hardly speak, I was so overcome with emotion. We immediately got into the
car and found the address where Tweety was. I paid the wonderful people a small
reward, and still could hardly speak. Cheeky Tweety is now back, both wings
clipped, and receiving tons of love and attention from his human family. My
daughter learned a precious lesson to never ever give up. There is always hope.
Just believe and keep on trying. It worked for us. I flew back to Cape Town on
Wednesday to do final prep for our journey.
After the usual preparations, provisioning, inspections and paperwork, we
waited for a good weather window to take on the most dangerous coast in the
world, and also one of the most beautiful I may add. The weather started
turning in our favour, we cleared port control, customs and immigration the
day before departure, and slipped our mooring lines at 10am on Tuesday 17/2.We
were expecting light southerly winds on the nose, which was predicted to turn
west later that evening. Our aim was to round Cape Point before the
westerlies came through, and the weather prediction turned out quite
accurate. We try and do every delivery better than the one before, and
decided to run a light boat. This meant we did not take extra fuel or water,
just filled our tanks, which would give us more speed. Problem with the
South African coast is that there are only a few ports you can run in for
shelter, and they are quite far apart. Running down the coast is the
almighty Agulhas current, and when a westerly front comes through, wind
against current makes for extremely dangerous conditions. Hugging the coast
we always find a bit of counter current, at night running on the 30mtr
contour line, and during the day come in to as close as 10mtrs at times. Our
navigational equipment is as good as you can get, but we still prefer a bit
of space at night. Safety is always our first priority.
We rounded Cape Point in good time and like clockwork the westerly started
building behind us. A little lower the centre of the front was moving
through, and we were well positioned to make the most of it without getting
blown away. Even so, the first night out was quite hectic with wind up to
45kts from behind. It does take a while for the swell to build up a bit, and
we were doing well with just a bit of headsail pulling us along at good
speed. When the swell did pick up, we tied a few mooring lines together,
tied the one end to the boat, and dragged this drogue behind us in the
water. It gives you great stability and prevents the yacht from running
wildly down the swells, just holding her in a bit. At a certain point, the
autopilot started struggling a bit, and I decided to take over the task of
steering the boat, or helming to be more nautically correct. The first few
hours of a front can get hectic, but soon conditions settled a bit, and we
were off to a great start. My fellow crewmembers had to first get their sea
legs a bit, but once they got used to the motion of the ocean, all was well.
Sometimes we only make it to Mosselbay before we encounter strong headwinds
again, but we were doing great speed, the westerlies stayed with us for a
while, and just as the easterlies started coming through, we turned into
Port Elizabeth on Friday 20/2 @ 17h30. Having a lighter and faster boat afforded
us this opportunity. We had a few refreshments that night and also had lunch the
following day at the Algoa bay yacht Club. At first it looked as though we may
have to spend a few days in PE, but noticed a very small gap in the weather, and
left for East London the next night at 6 just as the easterlies started fading.
Once again we had a great fast run to EL, and once again we turned into port
just as the easterlies started blowing. We had to sit there for a few days,
serviced the motors, kept the boat clean from the daily dust that the strong
easterlies blew onto us. We spend a bit of time with some folks at the Buffalo
River Yacht Club, and they also invited us for a braai. All in all we made the
most of our time there. Sitting on a boat for day in and day out not going
anywhere is not as easy as it me seem. Anyways.
The next leg was taking on the Wild Coast, and once the weather turned in
our favour, we were on our way again on 26/2. Here the continental shelf is at
it's narrowest and we were sailing nearly against the raw beauty off the steep
cliffs, waterfalls, grasslands, beaches and rocky outcrops here and there. We
had to cover 240nm to Durban to fuel up and fill our watertanks. We were
hoping this would be our last stop. We arrived there on Saturday @ 13h00
, did what we had to do and Sunday morning our fuel was delivered before
we were on our way again. Josh's mom and dad came to say hi, and my family
also popped in to come and say a final hi and bye. Just before we left,
Malcolm downloaded the newest weather and was a bit concerned. A fairly
strong westerly was predicted, but we decided to go anyway. We have a
schedule to try and stick to. Richards Bay is only 90 odd miles from Durban,
and we thought a slow cruise would have us there at first light. The wind
however had different ideas and slowly building up to 45kts from behind, we
tried our best to slow down. Once again we had long lines with knots behind
us, eventually had no sail out sailing just on bare poles as the saying
goes, but were still going too fast. Richards Bay is notorious for dangerous
conditions, many a boat has floundered here, and many sailors who have
circumnavigated the globe found the most trying conditions here. Quite a few
of them decide after a battle here that they had enough of sailing, leave
there boats here for sale, and fly back to whichever country they were from.
Once again the Agulhas current is the big factor here, and meets the
continental shelf here with full force. If the westerly is not too strong,
you can get through with some serious effort, but if the west is strong, it
turns into a washing machine of note. Current pushing you from one side,
wind pushing you from the other side, waves standing up on you, it really
can get out of hand here. The Wild Coast may produce a rogue wave at times,
but I think Richards Bay is the most dangerous spot for a yacht under
certain conditions. The Wild Coast is not easy either. A bit offshore, and
under the right, or perhaps I should say the wrong conditions, waves of up
to 40mtrs can form that will break a big ship in two. Feel free to google
it, I was also shocked and surprised when I learned of this. We waited in
Richards Bay for a few days as well, and enjoyed our time there at the
Zululand Yacht Club. Had a most fun evening there shooting pool and
generally just getting out of hand a bit. The sailing commodore presented us
with a bottle of champagne, and we were their guests of honour. They have a
good idea of what we are about, what we do, and respect us for that. They at
times admire and envy us, but at the same time also prefer to stay on land
most of the time. There are some serious racers there as well, and we made
some real great friends.
I haven't mentioned this, but some of my colleagues on a yacht just like
ours went missing a while ago. We were hoping that they are ok as their
epirb haven't been activated. Epirb stands for emergency position indicating
radio beacon. It is a device which we all carry that will send your position
via satellite every 12 seconds, and will last for about 48 hrs if you keep
transmitting non-stop. It can be manually activated and de-activated, r it
will activate as soon as it lands in the water. Your boat name etc are
registered with contact numbers, and should your epirb go off, those numbers
will be called from an operations station in France. We also carry satellite
phones aboard, and we call in our position twice a week to our office in
Cape Town. Sometimes the satphones becomes dysfunctional, and there are no
ways to make contact with the vessel. If the epirb has not been activated,
one would presume that everything is ok as the epirb has not been activated.
There is obviously also an estimated time of arrival at your destination,
and should you not arrive there in time, give or take a few days, there is
cause for concern. This boat has not arrived yet, there epirb has not been
activated, and there is now great cause for concern. They did encounter some
seriously heavy weather, but all of us who sail the oceans have encountered
some serious weather. The company that track and manages our deliveries, has
a perfect safety record thus far, but it has now been officially announced
that my friends are missing at sea. They have not arrived anywhere yet, and
are way overdue. Most of you reading this blog will know about this
situation, and there are huge efforts being made by thousands of people in
an effort to locate them. They may have capsized and are afloat somewhere,
who knows. I know of guys who were afloat for 140 days on a capsized
catamaran and the current eventually beached them here on the east coast of
Africa. More and more tales of similar and even longer afloat situations are
surfacing, and I will keep on hoping that somehow, somewhere, they will be
found. Never ever give up. The reality of their predicament really got to me.
It was hard for me to build up the courage to take to the ocean again from
Richards Bay, and reasoning with myself I spend a few restless nights there. A
small weather window presented itself again. There were strong easterlies
predicted, but if we could get up high enough fast enough, we would miss them.
It was time to go, and we waved Richards Bay goodbye. There were some cyclonic
activities further up the Mozambique Channel, but our weather support we have
from home would keep us informed of any trouble. The current was against us,
and we could not maintain the required speed to miss the strong easterlies. 30
miles out of Richards Bay, I phoned our operations manager in Cape Town and
discussed my plan to turn back to Richards Bay and wait for a better window.
It made no sense to be out there against current and wind with both motors
running and getting nowhere, and so we turned around. What a lovely trip we
had back, sailing with wind from behind and the current assisting us. 3am we
requested permission from Port Control to enter the port again due to bad
weather expected. When the friends we made on the dock awoke, they were
surprised to find us back, and one of them aptly said we should be named
Boomerang. I could only reply with a wry smile.
We once again waited patiently for the weather to turn in our favour, and on 5/3
on the full moon we were on our way again. It would be the first time on this
journey that we loose sight of land, and the first night out the conditions were
not great, but we managed fine. Since then we've had excellent wind pushing us
up the channel and going quite a bit faster than anticipated. We had fairly
strong winds from the south east and gave us a sailable angle of about 120
degrees from behind a broadreach as we call it in sailing terms. Mainsail on 2nd
reef, and genoa furled in and out as the weather dictated, we managed excellent
miles through some squalls, day and night. That is when dark clouds heavy with
rain moves over you and increases the wind speed substantially. The wind
direction shifts a bit, rain comes down, blows over and wait for the next one.
This is at times truly a 24/7 occupation. Yesterday for the first time the wind,
as predicted is very much straight from behind, and we are running with twin
headsails, making excellent progress. Following winds and seas, just going with
the flow. And then I once again remember why we who sail the oceans do this. The
closest closeness to the elements, nature in all her glory. The truest truth I
know, the realest reality I know. The beautiful full moon I saw rising a few
nights ago, and on my morning watch watched the sun rise again. And I wondered
if my buddies missing at sea saw the full moon rise and watched the sun rise
that morning. And still I wonder....
We are halfway up Madagascar, in the middle of the Mozambique Channel, weather
forecast for he next few days becalmed. About 1100nm to Seychelles, and we
should be there in a week or so. I have learned over the many years on the
oceans of the world that it is never over until it's over, and will not be
lulled into complacency. Our lures are dragging behind the boat, not a single
fish so far on this trip. A few ships here and there. Yesterday a small
passenger liner passed within about 4nm. Flying fish scattering here and there.
The days and nights are warm, the stars are shining brighter and brighter as
Sister Moon is waning. Rainbows now and then, but mostly blue all around. Thank
you for joining us for a little while, and hopefully you will join us again
before the trip is over. Take good care.
