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Monday, 1 March 2004 -- Trouble Ahead... We sailed through the night and awoke to a fine day. The breeze held from the NW and we were running under main and poled out jib. When we've done distance stuff before, we never once listened to a weather update en route. For some reason (Lee's prompting?) we decided to listen to the Met Office's 1215 update on the SSB...... "Forecast for Cape Agulhas to East London - GALE WARNING - Winds in excess of 35kts from the north west, swells building to 5m" Oh shit!! By 1245 the wind was building. By 1330 the helm was Lee's - he only takes over when it's beyond our abilities. Heretofore that's been seas >2.5m and wind >30kts (roughly). Now, the wind was screaming at 40kts and building. I pulled out the charts and almanac. There is nothing suitable for a keelboat anywhere near us. We're just at Cape Agulhas (rhymes with Dallas). Mossel Bay (Mosselbaai) is 120nm away. That's too far - even though we're doing 8-10kts easily. A second look shows that there is a marginally protected anchorage just around Agulhas in a small fishing town - Struis Bay (Struisbaai). No moorings; no slips; just a bit of a breakwater and some decent holding ground. So, we made the only call possible. Struis Bay, here we come. We dropped the mainsail; and rounded the Cape under jib alone. After an hour - 10kts under jib alone! - we saw what we thought was the Struisbaai light. But something didn't fit when we plotted our GPS position on the chart. Landmarks just weren't lining up. I suggested that it was not the Struisbaai light but the Cape one. While not mocked, I got no support. The same position v. landmark incongruity was evident on the next few plots (at 10-15 minute intervals). Finally, I grabbed the S.A. Navy List of Lights and Radio Signals book. The physical description of the lighthouse building clearly indicated it was the Cape light. Shit - further to go. Lee fired up the engine. But the racing kit of the boat includes a folding 2-bladed prop - pretty useless when you're facing nasty chop and now 50kts of wind. Gusts were 55-60kts! We ended up spending an hour plus beating back and forth across the Cape/Struisbaai waters to make about 1-1.5nm of ground. Wet, wet, windy, sweaty, salty, fierce sailing. But a bit fun too! Eventually we found ourselves about 50m off the starboard beam of the fishing vessel Thane. We dropped the hook in 6m of water with 20m of chain and another 20m or warp. Normal conditions would have been fine with either 18m of chain or 24m of warp! I spent some time jury rigging chafe guards for the warp and barber hauler. By the time I got back to the cockpit, the boyz had tea and biscuits ("bickies") ready. We sat in the cockpit and enjoyed the howl of the wind in the shrouds. Then Lee poked his head through the companionway. The NSRI (National Sea Rescue Institute) had hailed him on the VHF. Subsequent comms via cell phone indicated they thought we'd be better off several hundred metres away in 4m of water. I was sent forward with Rolie to pull up the anchor. The engine was revved up, we moved forward. Rol and I had the hook off the bottom. About halfway through the warp the boat lifted on a wave as she took a gust on the beam. We pivoted; the warp jumped out of the bow roller; it settled into a gap between the chain plate and roller. Another wave and we had no anchor. The bow lifted, the weight of the hook pulled down - the line was stretch taught and sheared by an edge. We had a spare so no worries. It took about 30-45 minutes of tough beating to make the 300-500m we wanted. We used the jib and engine only. The main would have been overpowering even if we had 3 reefs in it. On the foredeck I put the spare hook on the leftover warp. We figured we had a total of about 30m. 4m of water normally calls for 20m of warp. We would be fine. Lee had us in position, we dropped the anchor. Suddenly the boat stopped. It was not the anchor holding - the keep was grounding. The NSRI said we would have 4m of water, plenty for our 2.2m draft. Well, we were on a rock - a big flat one. Wind, swell, wind, swell and the boat bumped and spun. Not the warp was wrapped around the keel! Then the anchor began to drag. We were 25m away from the bow of a large steel fishing boat. Drifting with our beam at its bow. It was bobbing up and down in the swell... if we hit it with out beam we would - literally and instantly - have been sliced in half. Lee gave the order to cut the anchor free. Pete had his knife at the ready quickly. (I had 2 on me - a good sailor always has a knife on their person) He gunned the engine and we escaped. With about 10m to spare. A bit of beating back and forth bought time for the NSRI to arrange a tow. They towed us to the transom of a fishing boat. We took a line and pair-moored with them. When all was said and done we were 25m astern of Thane! A lot of work, 2 anchors, some serious threat and we ended up 75m from our initial anchorage. Tea, hot dogs, SMS and phone calls rounded out the day. An exciting one for sure! Tuesday/Wednesday, 2/3 March 2004 -- The Race... I drew the 0100-0200 anchor watch. It was cold, rainy and windy but the front was clearly passing. The mooring line held. It stayed cold and rainy. The seas were choppy to begin then the chop turned to big swell. I slept well the rest of the night. We left Struisbaai Tuesday morning. The swell was pretty big but the boat (and now crew) handled it well. We headed out for Mosselbaai, about 180nm away. I don't recall much of the sailing there - all these grey days at the end of the continent rapidly become indistinguishable. But I suspect it was stretches of cloud interspersed with sun. We did make good time! I was skipper of the day (SOD) for the entry to Mosselbaai. I was prepped with a pilotage plan and ready to go. Jaco's team had left Cape Town a day after us, but the big winds to push them and a stop for us - they caught up to VHF distance (~15nm??) about the time we left Struisbaai. Shabby lagged behind us until an errant navigational choice (mine as SOD) and their willingness to motor sail (while we beat - and, damn, I was good on the helm for my stint!) allowed them to catch up a few. They motor sailed past us as we tacked. Our boys mooned them. They cut their engine. The race was on. They were ahead but we easily overtook them. Once in front we could hold them off at will - and we did! We dropped our main and furled the jib on the last upwind stretch into the harbour. Shabby sailed past but they knew they'd been beaten. Mosselbaai was not much to speak of - I was just glad to have a proper toilet available to me. I had the runs (literally shitting through the eye of a needle!!) from drinking the water on the boat (the water bladders were FOUL!). Had I been on deck when our boys were mooning Shabby, I could have shat on their sails even though they were 50m away. As SOD I was responsible for fueling, provisioning and cleaning the boat. It had to be ready to go for the next morning. Tasks were assigned and set about. I worked fueling details ("uh, show up after 0700, ask for Ben, he might know what and how it can be done..."). John started his passage plan for Port Elizabeth (PE). Together we refilled the water bladders. Once things were shipshape, we made for dinner. It was a nice one. My guts were starting to behave. I chatted with Lee - he's happy with my progress. That's good to know! Thursday, 4 March 2004 -- Underway Again... We left Mosselbaai Thursday morning after refueling. The sail to PE was uneventful. We arrived in Port Elizabeth on Friday. We spent a couple of days getting things back in order and left there early Monday morning Monday, 8 March 2004 -- The Last Leg... I was SOD again. We slipped our lines at 0630 and headed for Durban. We headed 50nm miles offshore to cover a requirement for the course. Nothing noteworthy on the first day of sailing. The 2nd day out of PE we saw the single most amazing thing I have ever seen at the sea surface. We saw hundreds of gannets (white seabirds) diving into the water about a mile ahead of us. As we drew closer, we saw dolphins jumping as well. Then we sailed into it. Everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE, we looked there were dolphins. In about 1nm2, there must have been 1200-1500 of them. A MASSIVE pod in a massive feeding frenzy! Just amazing. There were so many, you'd see hundred around the boat at any moment. Rolie went below. He said their echo-location and clicking could be heard through the hull. Very, very cool! Thursday, 11 March 2004 -- Durban Arrival... Over the last week we've faced pretty variable conditions. It's now Thursday. I had the helm 1.5 hours ago and it was blowing 30kts under grey rain clouds. I just awoke from a nap to see blue skies through the hatch. It's changed that dramatically, in both directions, all the way from Cape Town. This leg has been the same although a tad heavy on the grey. We arrived in Durban Thursday nite. There is nothing in Jim's notes but he did mention that the weather was pretty nasty on the last part of the leg. Friday, 12 March 2004 -- End of the first part... We spent Friday morning cleaning up Madiba and getting our gear ready to leave for Cape Town on Sunday. We still had the catamaran work to do - we were supposed to get 2 full days of it, but it ended up just getting tacked on to Friday and Saturday. Saturday evening we had a farewell bash at Lee's place. I took some pix of Durban at nite but they didn't turn out - sorry, you don't get to see Durbs! Janice arrived in Cape Town on Saturday. 2 days to get there from California. She parked herself in the hotel and tried to shake the jet lag by sleeping for 16 hours! |
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