To Durban and back

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 We joined the Zululand Yacht Club's sail to Durban and back over Christmas.  Our boat was just ready enough for a long trip, but comfort is overrated. Right? 

Sailing is all about the weather and waiting for the right weather window to head south to Durban.  This delay caused most of the other boats to drop out but we were still a merry flotilla heading off  22 December midday;  Shiloh (34 ft), Betwixt (35) and Princess del Mer (35).  We sailed in that order all the way to Durban.

The estimated time to sail to Durban is 20 hours.  We left the bay in a gentle southerly breeze sailing with the Jib.  As we had no self-steering yet, we took turns with the tiller.  After about 3 hours we put up the Main sail, and John was aghast to find that there were no reefing lines.  A bit of a panic and confusion, but it was sorted and the Main went up.   It turned out that he had forgotten to put the lines in after working on the reefing points a few weeks back.  The last few months have been non-stop working on the boat.  It has been stressful.  With two sails up we gulled downwind through very choppy sea.  Which brought about the next problem.  I got seasick.

The logistics of feeling motion sickness on a rocking bouncing boat with no plumbing was unpleasant.  I barely managed to take the tiller to give John a break so that he could do a chart plot every hour.  One of the night watches was quite peaceful.  We were not alone, the lights from land visible as we were only about 2 miles off the coast and as we reached Umhlanga there were about 40 ships queuing at anchor to get into Durban port so we did need to keep a look out.  We entered Durban 09h00 welcomed in by Shiloh and Durban yotties.  The sun was already beating down promising a very hot day and we wondered how we would be able to get some sleep in the heat.  But first a shower at the yacht club and coffee.

The next day we did what all yotties do on their boats when they are not sailing.  Fix stuff and clean stuff.  

The wind turned north on Christmas day for us to head home, just Shiloh and us, as the Princess was continuing south to get home to Canada.  We left 08h00 in a very gentle breeze sailing with Jib, Main and Mizzen.  Shiloh decided to show off with their beautiful spinnaker and soon overtook us.  In all our sea trials we have had some scary moments being over sailed usually with our Genoa, so I was nervous when John wanted to use the Genoa again.  It was perfect for the very light wind.  Until it wasn't.

We learned so many lessons, the hard way, on that trip, including get that Genoa down if there is any inkling of bad weather, and before dark.  We do not have roller furlers and sails are manhandled the old-fashioned way with me steering and John fighting the sails up front on a bouncing deck.  He was wearing a life jacket with safety ties, a headlight and his glasses, so that he could see what he was doing, but the rain pouring down just made it very difficult.  He did get the Genoa down in time as the wind picked up to about 35 knots.  The last 10 miles was hard sailing.  When the sky lit up at 04h00 it felt better but the rain obscured everything including the bay harbour lights.  Our navigation system was not installed yet so we needed to have sight of the lights to enter the bay.  We were just about to turn the boat around and go wait out at sea for the rain to stop when Shiloh's lights appeared in front of us;  we followed her safely in.

Smiles before the seasickness 




Fixing Reefing Lines

Fixing

More fixing

Beautiful spinnaker in Durban

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