cape town st helena
Penguin
Mon 3 Mar 2008 15:14
by amazing places, the best
Game parks in the World, Great Vineyards the beautiful botanical Gardens,
Table Mountain, Cape Hope,
But parked at the Cape Yacht Club is a 20 year old sailing yacht that has
just completed 14000 miles from
Auckland and previous to that another 14000 miles from UK to NZ. We had a
period of about 3weeks before
Niamh`s visa for SA ran out and every moment of that time would be needed
to get Penguin in something like good shape to get back to UK for the end
of June. I also had the good fortune to be introduced to Alfred
A local Guy who was willing to come and work with me on Penguin for the
princely sum of 15 euro a day,
Very good value even more so as he worked extremely hard during his 8 hrs.
His first job was to help me with the Antifouling but seeing what a hard
worker he was I soon had him stripping out the deck caulking
Which I then had to recaulk and in a period of 4 days we had managed to
redo the whole boat, a real bonus.
So needless to say The game Parks wineries ect ect will just have to wait
until the next time I visit should
I get the opportunity again. On the 15 February the date Niamh Visa ran
out Penguin Was Up and ready.
Antifoul, rig, watermaker, alternator, sails done, Owning a boat is the
same as having a black hole in your pocket time and money disappear into
it never to be seen again, But the rewards from this effort is living
through some amazing experiences, so mus`nt grumble.
It so happened that on the 15 of febuary the Royal Cape Yacht Club where
holding a two day racing regatta
Along the coast to Suldanah Bay and a pursuit Race in the Bay. It seemed
only fitting that if 70 boats where
Racing up the coast then Penguin must surely be one of them. And so it was
at 8.30 on the 15th Penguin
Crossed the RCYC start line at the end of the dock wall, We had Myself
Niamh and Andre a local from SA who was keen to sail with us to Salvador
to get some offshore experience on board. For the first couple of
Hours their was enough wind to keep us moving but by about midday that
faded away and we decided to
Motor up the coast. At about 3 the wind filled in and we had 4hours of
sailing with the new Spinnaker amongst South Africa finest.
.
Our competition whilst the wind had faded, Penguin racing Penguin’s
So our chance of being amongst the prizes was slim as no doubt their would
be one or two die hards who would not give up and would complete the race
whatever. On the Saturday their was a persuit race around the bay our
start was at 10.26 with a group of 4other boats. The wind was blowing
about 25knots which made for
Some great racing and by the time we finished at about 3oclock we had
35knots of breeze in the bay, so it was all very exciting by then. As we
were sailing 3 up there was no way we could hope to fly the spinnaker
Around the can`s inside a bay, because the wind was so strong Penguin was
sailing at full hull speed anyway
So we did not lose out to much on the runs. So here’s our result we
crossed the finish with the 80ft Warrior
Just in front of us we were about 12th boat to finish and ended up 1st in
our class for that race. Not at all bad
Since we where fully loaded with fuel, water, food for 5weeks and all boat
spares, I don`t think Ivan would
Approve of Penguin`s racing trim. Niamh and Andre had worked themselves to
the bone trimming sails all
Day whilst I had the easy job of pointing the boat in the right direction,
so I must commend them for their
Herculean efforts. On the Sunday whilst the rest of the boats where faced
with the prospect of 70 miles to
Windward in 25 knots we had the pleasure of setting off to Luderitz
Namibia 470 miles north with the wind
Directly behind us. We wanted to see something of the desert landscape as
it comes right up to the coast line.
.
We also got the chance to do a little tour around in the desert and
visited the ghost town an old Diamond mining centre. Our stay in Namibia
was short but surely a place not to be missed out on. We now had 1330
Miles to get us to a volcanic rock in the middle of the South Atlantic, by
all accounts this would also be pleasant downwind sailing all the way. The
highlight of this leg would be sailing along side a pod of Pilot
Whales whilst they surfed the waves, we also had our spinnaker flying and
at one stage I thought I was going
To run over a group of them which were just in front of the bow. The trip
to St Helena took us 8days so once
Again we have the pleasure of getting to spend a bit of time exploring the
Island as opposed to spending day’s and day’s needlessly floating about in
the ocean, but I am sure their that their will be a lot of you who think
that one day at sea is needlessly wasting ones time on the ocean. We could
see Land from a distance of
30 miles as the cliffs and mountains rise steeply from the sea. Our
arrival time was 1400 hrs on saturday 1st
march we where hoping that we had found the only lump of Rock in the
Atlantic that would be showing
6 Nations Rugby on telly but sadly all our efforts to arrive for the
afternoons matches where wasted their
was a rest weekend and nothing was going on. On checking the internet we
found the important date and fixture, England would be playing Ireland on
the 15march so we had now another target, Salvador before then so Penguin
will have to do some Flying. Not to mention Andre Flight back to Cape Town
which is also booked for the 18th. Here are a few photos to keep you
going.