SAILING DIARY

Land Ho!

Cape Town
The last 10 days or so of the run into Cape Town were grinding and magnificent by turn. Turning left, south of an Atlantic high, towards Cape Town boosted morale no end. Sadly the boost lasted but a day, as a strong cold front rolled us. Winds steadily rose to 35-40 kts from the SW making it hard to make any southing.

Jamie, Paddy, Ian – 1/10/17

Trucking along at anything from 9-12 kts making east with a bit of north, our pace meant that we hung on to the coat tails of the front for longer than comfortable. Coming after the high of turning towards the Cape this was particularly wearing, (and slightly nerve wracking when the gusts topped 40) but actually did us good from an ETA perspective. 2 reefs and a staysail gave us balance and, as the breeze fell into the high 20’s, we dropped down to course and were flying, averaging well over 200 miles a day.

The last 4 days were some of the best sailing we’ve had on the Kialoa: fast, stable, on course, and plenty to eat and drink as rationing went out the window and squirreled away chocolate supplies came to light.

Libs – 8/10/17
Grix – 4/10/17

Just after the call “Land Ho!” on sighting the unmistakable profile of Table Mountain, a gut wrenching bang and the boom end lifted 4 feet. The bottom boom vang fitting peeled off the mast. Pulling the pin out of the boom end and laying the hydraulic cylinder on the deck, it was apparent that the machine screws holding it to the mast were defective. Confirmed by the riggers who helped us fix the issue in Cape Town, the fastenings the original rigging company had used were a) too small and b) very cheap. The slots cut into the screw heads were too deep meaning that only the smallest amount of metal was holding the head on to the shank. Once the lower screw heads popped off the other screws pulled out.

Not enough to dampen our rising spirits, we pulled into V&A Waterfront Marina at about 17:30 local time, an elapsed time of 31 days and some 6 hours. Not bad, not bad at all. And to my eyes there was an angel on the dock carrying cold beer and chips. Thank you Melly, so good to see you!

Paddy