Day 6 – Thursday 09 January 2020

By Daniel Skriker

The challenge posed by the passage from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro is the decision of how far north to sail before making the left turn towards Rio. If you turn too early, you might get stuck in the South Atlantic High, an area of the ocean that has light to no wind. If you turn too late, you’ll end up sailing an extra distance.

The race thus far has certainly posed an interesting tactical challenge in terms of the weather routing. We started off in a strong NW direction and were achieving good speed over ground. However we then got caught in some light winds which throttled our progress quite badly. So we ended up turning further north to skirt the worst of the light winds and are now heading back in a NW direction. We expect to reach a line of latitude by Sunday at which point we can consider turning in a more Westerly direction. While our progress was hampered by the light winds, this hasn’t deterred the crew in giving it their all. At times everyone can become a bit tired and lazy but the simple reminder that we are in a race is enough to get them out of their bunks and onto the foredeck.

With our first week at sea drawing to an end, life on board has become second nature day-to-day life. It’s become a bit strange to think of going back to ordinary life on land. The entire crew, half of which were novice keelboat sailors when we first set sail on this voyage, have now become comfortable with handling the spinnaker.

Matt and I handed over our watch to Josh and Mika at 08h00 by hoisting the spinnaker. We dropped this around 10h00 for a short while and during this time we caught our 2nd fish of the race! A Tuna so big that the lads struggled to pick it up. Max, Matt and Josh spent over an hour filleting the fish and cleaning up the aft deck.

We put the spinnaker back up and enjoyed our first freshly baked bread for lunch which was made by Dom.

The entire crew, half of which were novice keelboat sailors when we set sail have now become comfortable with handling the spinnaker. From lunch time onwards, we kept the spinnaker flying for the entire day. We had a spectacular sunset with the bag up and the boating cruising downwind at 7-9 knots. The experience of watching the orange glow of the sun setting below the waves with nothing ahead but open sea is indescribable.
Mika cooked up a fantastic supper of Tuna steaks and pasta. While working away in the galley, much to the amusement of the crew, he did a song and dance to the music playing out of the cockpit.

We decided to keep the heavy spinnaker flying throughout the night. The wind was blowing 15-20 knots and we were achieving a speed over ground of 8-10 knots. The thrill of it was amazing but everyone went to bed with strict instructions to sleep with their lifejacket and tether next to them in case we needed all hands on deck for a quick drop.

At 22h58, while Matt and I were on watch, the spinnaker came down. At first it appeared as if we had blown a halyard but in fact the leech and torn. The entire crew were on deck within a minute, PFD’s on and tethers clipped in. The deck light was switched on and the bag was recovered from the water. We managed to avoid it getting caught on the keel and cut away and recovered the bits near the prop. By 23h33, the crew were back down below and we continued on course with a poled out genoa. The torn spinnaker was our old one that was probably nearing the end of its life and fortunately we do have another almost new spinnaker on board that last year had generously been donated by Rotary Club of Bellville which had originally donated the yacht to Scouts in the 90’s.

The albacore (longfin tuna) caught by the crew yesterday. A white meat tuna that was used to produce the first tinned tuna product in the US, the Atlantic fish dive to twice the depth of their Pacific relatives at 600m and a 20kg female produces 2-3 million eggs per spawning. They are very popular fish to catch using trolling with a lure behind a boat, which is how this one was caught, as they put up quite a fight and can take quite some time to bring in.