Rewind

Before my memory of the trade winds, the open ocean and the starry nights fade................

Now that we're home,I have been asked a number of questions.

Firstly, how did you get back from St Helena and where is your boat?

We lowered the mast at St Helena. Thanks to Ian Smith and Hayden Daws from Swimlion who came over to assist Jeremy and Jamie and I, the process went smoothly despite the less than ideal conditions. The boat was then taken alongside the mailship RMS St Helena (RMS) and she was hoisted aboard and secured on the forward hatch as deck cargo. As the crane took the weight, we folded her up and thus reduced the overall beam from 7 meters to a mere 2.88 meters.

8 other boats were also loaded onboard for the passage back to Cape Town.

Tanya, James, Rosie and I and Jeremy came back onboard the ship with the majority of the competitors and their families. The trip back was a lot of fun and we celebrated Christmas onboard.

The race families going to St Helena onboard the ship and getting there just before us and then being able to spend about 10 days on the Island with the family is something unique about the Governors Cup.

Coming back with the other teams was also a nice way of really getting to know the others and their families.

Banjo is still standing at a warehouse yard in Table Bay docks. She will be coming home on a lowbed trailer in a weeks time. She is just a bit too wide to be trailed as "normal" i.e 300 mm. too wide.

Wider vehicles are only allowed back on the road after the 17th January.

Just as well we did not sail her back from Cape Town. It's been gale after gale ever since the ship first docked in Cape Town and I have had to get back to my business.

It has been 6 weeks since I first left town to sail down to the start with Jeremy.

Another question I get asked is about Banjo being referred to as a "state of the art racer" by a race commentator.

Well, the Banjo is not state of the art, and is not even a racer.

The boat is simply one of very clever design, very light and was in fact designed as a family cruising boat. It was also designed as a trailer sailor and the designer does not even encourage boats of her design to sail trans-Atlantic!

Banjo had no fancy high tech sails such as used by all hot racing boats. Our sails were all in Dacron as against the Kevlar sails of racing boats.

Banjo also had no electronic wind instruments onboard. This would be unheard of on a racing boat. One competitor referred to "a disaster onboard" when they just temporarily lost power and the use of their wind instruments and navigational aids. Compared to that (and them), the Banjo must have been in disaster mode for the entire race. But we were not, we just kept things simple.

The Banjo also had no specialised spinnakers for the race. No racing boat would ever contemplate sailing an ocean race without highly specialised spinnakers. We sailed with borrowed spinnakers. Not one of our spinnakers were cut according to the designers specs. They were all off boats of a totally different design and therefore really make do. But we are very grateful to the folk who lent us the sails.

So it was more a case of Banjo, a cruising boat giving the racers a run for their money.

In the end what matters most was that we were first boat over the line. Jeremy and I had a great sail, a grand time onboard, ate fantastic meals prepared under atrocious conditions and ate atrocious meals prepared under fantastic conditions. We made lots of friends and just simply, had a lekka time.

More bits and pieces later.