wisdom and weather

Vessel Name: waw
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13 February 2017

Back to Cape Town

My mom dropped me off at the Hout Bay fishing pier, arriving in time to meet Jamie our instructor for the weeek and William. They were waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Jamie made his intentions known fairly quickly. A serious man who wants to get down to business as soon as possible. He wanted [...]

25 January 2017

Downwind cruising to Capetown with just the headsail

We were all up early, full of excitement for our upcoming sail to Cape Town. We could hear the wind was ready to play too. The gusts whistling through Benguela's rig. We had a quick breakfast before moving onto the deck to hank the number 3 headsail onto the forestay. Lucas was the skipper for the day [...]

24 January 2017 | Hout Bay

Let's get this show on the road!

It's half past 3 in the morning. Everyone on the boat is asleep, except for me. I'm wide awake, brimming with energy. I'm not too sure where it's coming from. Most likely from the excitement in preparation for my first long distance sailing passage. The passage will take us 40 miles from Hout Bay (aka [...]

Back to Cape Town

13 February 2017
My mom dropped me off at the Hout Bay fishing pier, arriving in time to meet Jamie our instructor for the weeek and William. They were waiting for the rest of the crew to arrive. Jamie made his intentions known fairly quickly. A serious man who wants to get down to business as soon as possible. He wanted us to walk to the supermarket to stock up for the week. I let him know that I needed to drop my bags off on the boat and that i was happy to do the shopping for the next two days. I walked through the gate to the Yacht marina and walked down the travelling bridge between the pier and the fingers of the Yacht marina. Passing the now familiar boats as I walked to Cape Storm. It had been two weeks since we were last on the water. Two tough weeks of theory in the classroom with Dave. I was happy to be back on the water. William helped me carry my bags and we dropped them off on Cape Storm and headed back to the gate waiting for the rest of the crew. Stef, Mar and Lucas arrived shortly thereafter and we all headed to Cape Storm for a chat about the week's plan. Chatting in the salon we decided that we'd head for Cape Town as the South Easter was picking up, a solid downwind sail and good conditions the next day for some sail training in False bay. Stef, Mar and Lucas were assigned to ready the boat while William and I set out to buy groceries. We were lucky enough to have Miles drive us to the Spar along with John and Ed from the Benguela.
This was William and my third food shop together and we were learning to have fun buying the groceries joking our way through each of our purchases. Earlier we had decided to go with boerewors rolls for lunch- Stef's answer to the horrible vienna style hotdogs we had eaten during our Comp crew week. Having some left over sweet and sour sauce we planned sweet and sour chicken with julienne stir fried vegetables for dinner tonight. Having had some drama with the chicken in the past we were super selective and bought the chicken with no blood, in the hope that it would keep. We bought bread and cheese for lunch tomorrow and some mince to make bolognese for tomorrow night's dinner. On the way out we almost forgot to buy ice for our icebox, luckily Miles reminded us.
Back on Cape Storm we unpacked the groceries as quickly as possible, slipped the lines and headed out into the bay with Stef at the helm. We decided to take the second reef (the only available and deepest reef) on the main. We did this we'd be heading out through hurricane alley- the gap between the Sentinel and Chapman's peak, an area known for its gnarly wind conditions as the wind funnelled between the two peaks. Motor sailing out into the bay on a starboard tack we neared Chapman's peak and tacked to Port. We managed to clear Vulcan rock to the South by around 200m and shortly thereafter bore away to a dead run with the Karbonkelberg to our Starboard side. The sail down to Lion's head was quite uneventful and we rotated helm duty along the way. Rounding Lion's head the wind dropped off as we came into the wind shadow of Table Mountain. We had to start the donkey (motor) to make it through the shadow and round Seapoint. The wind at Seapoint was blustery and we dropped the headsail to prepare for the normally strong wind in the breakwater approach and to improve the visibility of our entry to the Waterfront. We called Port control was called before we rounded the breakwater, confirming that we could access the port. We we rounded the breakwater we felt the true force of the South Easter as the swell picked up and spray flew from our boat, wetting the skipper. Thankfully only a short patch of strong wind before we were safely inside the port, taking off our foul weather gear to enjoy the warmth of the African sun. We had a short wait before the bridges were opened and we docked at the Cape Grace Yacht club. The lines were left slipped as we had a quick late lunch of boerewors rolls. After lunch we did some stern-to docking practice. We were all feeling quite rusty having been off the wheel. There were some near misses by all of us, but by the end of our third attempts we all had the boat under good control.
After docking practice we made off the lines and met up for a debrief and to decide on tomorrow's plan. Jamie decided we would sail around Robben island, practicing our navigation along the way. He assigned each of us a waypoint and asked us to make a plan with turning bearings that became backbearings (if possible), with the start and end depths along and the distance so we could calculate the time dependent on our speed over ground. The section assigned to me was from the middle of Robben island rounding the Northern most tip and turning back towards Cape Town. As a group we waited while each of us completed our plans using the knowledge that Dave had taught us during our past two weeks of theory. Knackered after a big first day back on the water we decided to eat out for dinner and headed to Mitchell's Scottish Brewpub for a bite and a pint.

Downwind cruising to Capetown with just the headsail

25 January 2017
We were all up early, full of excitement for our upcoming sail to Cape Town. We could hear the wind was ready to play too. The gusts whistling through Benguela's rig. We had a quick breakfast before moving onto the deck to hank the number 3 headsail onto the forestay. Lucas was the skipper for the day and we did a safety briefing, running through what to do in an emergency, be it and explosion, fire or flooding aboard. Shortly after we checked the engine oil and coolant levels. There was a minor coolant leak, eased by a cup full of water. The engine's bilge had a little bit of oil, but not enough to worry about.
We were off, motoring out of the Hout bay harbour breakwater passed our compatriots on the S/V Cape Storm. Miles assured us that raising the mainsail now would not be a good idea. The wind was gusting into the 30's as we motored out of hurricane alley. When we had a moment's reprise we raised the headsail and headed out of the bay on a port tack. Rounding the corner between the legendary Dungeons and Vulcan rock we were already cruising a steady 8 knots. I could feel it was going to be a good day on the water. As we rounded the Karbonkelberg near the wreck of the Bos-400 derrick we swung the bow gently downwind. Stefano did a superb job on the helm, guided by Lucas and we stayed inshore of the shipping lane. It was a smooth sail down to Cape town, the wind remaining a constant 25+ knots and the boat speed not dropping below 7 knots. Sailing round Seapoint lighthouse we were hit by the swells and got a few waves over the bow. It was at this point that we decided to lower the headsail due to the swell direction and head for the Cape Town harbour breakwater. Poor William got soaked as we lowered the headsail and secured it to the guardrails. Lucas saw what happened and came to help us lower the headsail and complete securing it. We headed for the relatively dry safety of the cockpit and kept our heads down as the spray shot across the boat. Stefano on the helm didn't manage to avoid the spray and was soaked getting us passed the harbour breakwater, taking a wide course to avoid getting wetter while traversing the chop between the breakwaters. As we came close the calm waters of the second breakwater Miles and Lucas let port control know we would be entering the port over the VHF. We motored past Shimmy Beach Club and into the Victoria Basin. Miles was back on the VHF requesting the swing bridge to open. We waited for 15 minutes very patiently, hiding from the wind next to the tourist yachts. The bridge swung open and we passed through. The wait for the Bascule Bridge was short and we were docking at the V&A Marina soon after it was raised. We tidied up the boat and made our way to Mitchell's pub for a well deserved pint and a burger!

Let's get this show on the road!

24 January 2017 | Hout Bay
Avz / N(W'ly) 10-15 kts
It's half past 3 in the morning. Everyone on the boat is asleep, except for me. I'm wide awake, brimming with energy. I'm not too sure where it's coming from. Most likely from the excitement in preparation for my first long distance sailing passage. The passage will take us 40 miles from Hout Bay (aka Snoektown) heading north to Slaap Stad (Cape Town).
The rest of the crew were up late last night plotting waypoints into the GPS. I, however, passed out early. We had a tough day of docking practice and I was knackered. We weren't out sailing as we had a cold front passing through. The conditions were light and variable and we even had a little shower at lunch time. Some much needed rain in a parched land. The docking went well with our confidence levels growing, and nerves subsiding, with each successful dock. The rope handling skills which seemed so foreign less than two weeks ago were already becoming much more natural to us. We did some 3 point turns between the ribs of the marina skeleton. The main focus of these being the "3 w's" wind, walk and wash. Checking our wind direction firstly as wind can determine how easily your boat keeps the turning momentum. Then the using the propeller walk, a characteristic of the direction rotation of the propeller to help turn our stern to starboard. Lastly the wash from the engine across the rudder to turn Benguela. By the time we had all done our 3 point turns and another round of docking the North Westerly wind had picked up and it was time to head out to the bay for some sailing! We practiced approaching a mooring buoy, dropping the headsail and a few fender recovery exercises. During William's turn to do the fender recovery exercises we had a little rain and were lucky enough to have a rainbow held over Chapmans peak pass. A fitting end to a good day on the water. We had some yummy home-made chicken curry for dinner. Now it's time to catch 20 winks so I have some energy for today's big sail.

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