And what did you eat?

What did we eat?

Lots!

For breakfast we did a "help yourself".

We would simply rig up something either before or when coming off watch at a time that suited yourself.

Breakfast would be oats or muesli, coffee or tea and if you wanted, some fruit juice.

During the morning we would snack away at whatever we laid our eyes on.

Lunchtime was an organised set meal. Tinned tuna, ham, cheese, pickles etc. Or a quick snack boil in a bag meal if it was cold weather. And crackers and spreads, rounded off with canned fruit and custard.

It is very hot in the Trades over noon and we have found from previous trips that lunches can be kept simple and small.

During the afternoon the sun would beat down heavily and the wind tended to drop in strength.

You then tended to drink vast amounts of water. We took onboard about 70 litres of bottled water and also some lime juice. Going onto an afternoon watch we would then rig up a litre of water and lime drink. And sip away at it. Keeping well hydrated was important and made life in the tropics a pleasure.

Come late afternoon we would aim for an early dinner and have the dishes cleaned away before sunset.

I wanted to take a beer a day for the race but Jeremy said it was going to make us lethargic. So I skipped the idea and just took a small container of white wine for sundowner/ dinner time.

Dinners. Tanya made us 4 pre-cooked dinners which she froze. These meals were individually packed and carefully wrapped in newspaper for added insulation. They were then transferred into a coolbox filled to the brim with iced bottles of drinking water.

We therefore had nice dinners for 4 of our 9 nights at sea.

Our routine was to get the meal out of the coolbox quickly and shut the lid. No other scratching inside the coolbox allowed. This kept the food frozen or very cold for five days.

Tanya's meals were beef stews, mexican food and curries. What I call nice boat food. The meal simply had to be heated and we would cook rice or a pasta to go with it.

For the remaining days we had tinned meats and veggies. Some of these meals were better than others.

The galley onboard Banjo is "compact". A single burner gas stove, a small s/s sink and plenty of lockers for the everyday stuff. Washing up was done in a plastic bowl in the cockpit.

We carefully rationed the fruitcake my Mom had given us. It just lasted the duration of the voyage. We took too much sugar, tea, milk and fruit juices.The rest of the stuff was just about polished by the time we crossed the finish line.

All in all it worked well.

One thing I learnt again is that you do not need a fancy boat to have a nice passage. Simple and functional and neat is all that you need. And the cabin must have no leaks.

Next time.......................

a bit about the heads arrangements.

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.

Home is the sailor,

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea" by R.L. Stevenson

It's 30 days since I last wrote something here. And I'm right back here in Simonstown where I wrote the last piece.

So much has happened. I will give the whole story over a number of posts by just putting down things as they flash through my mind.

All in all, a wonderful experience. The race was everything I could have hoped for. A fast passage, good company, a sound boat, the South Atlantic Trade winds, the turquoise seas, the flying fish. And after 9 days and 19 hours of sailing, the island of St Helena and being the first boat home.

Highlights?.......... too many.

Some things that now flash through my mind:

The first night. We new that the first night was going to be a make or break and that the weather was going to cut off those that get away from the rest. We blasted around Cape Point in first place with Our Dianne and Swimlion. Then blasted North in a rising westerly wind under spinnaker. That was to be our getaway from the rest of the fleet. It was a hair raising first night, sailing right on the edge of sanity. At 3 am Jeremy called me on deck so we could drop the spinnaker...................it was getting too much. And what a battle it was getting it down. (After the race we learnt that the other two leading boats dropped theirs at exactly the same time for the same reason!

Then two days of blast reaching in very bumpy conditions. Behind us there was carnage in the fleet. The boats that did not get away was plastered by wind in excess of 45 kts. We saw none of that, but still took a beating while we speed ahead.

The a bout three days of cat and mouse fighting with Our Dianne for the lead.

Jeremy telling me we must either sail harder and keep more sail up for much longer or we will not get in front. We did just that and took off into the lead.

The beautiful trade wind sailing that followed. I have never experienced such sailing. The boat flew. Day after day we did 24 hr runs in excess of 200 miles. In a 9.5 meter boat!

The dark night watches. "A star to steer her by".

Then St Helena appeared in a dark night. Just silhouette at first. Then round the northern tip. The each in to the finish under spinnaker.

The two power boats that came out to meet us in the black night. As we swept past them the Banjo powered up and they gave full throttle to keep up. But the Banjo was flying and they had to give it all to catch us. Which they took long time to do.

As we swept in to the finish line, our speedo showed a steady 12 to 13 knots and I shouted to Jeremy "you don't get it better than this, what a way to finish a race!"

Then Tanya and Jamie and Rosie coming alongside and Jamie jumping onboard to help stow sails and pick up moorings.

We had finished at 5 in the morning. It was just getting light when we stepped ashore at St Helena's (in)famous landing steps. Just like every single person who had ever called at the Island. The only way to get onto St Helena is by landing at the steps. Unless you were born on the Island.

Napoleon landed there, royalty had to climb them, Frans Loots had to climb them.

More later.

And more pictures later too.

It's all about the People

Our dinner guests have just left.

We had the Bagshaws down for dinner. Like a final get-together for the two families.

And Jeremy and I had a look at the weather. A light wind start. Great! That will ease me into the trip without getting seasick. But its gonna make for a tricky first night of racing. If we can do it right on Wednesday night and early Thursday, I believe one can do a big getta way on the rest. Time will tell. But I think if you mess up, you are going to be stuck in some light winds for a day while the others get off to a flying start.

It has been a peacefull few days leading up to the start. It gave me time to reflect on how we got here and why do we sail. There are lots of reasons. You can write a book on it.

But one think is for sure...............It's all about the people.

So many people out there make this wonderfull game of sailing.

Like Mike Jones.

Mike is from Falmouth in England. He has stopped in Simonstown with his family, on their way to their new home in Freemantle Australia. Their boat is a sailor's dream boat. A steel sloop by Van de Stadt, 48 foot long, and fitted out for serious ocean sailing. A chatty fellow, I met him on our arrival at False Bay Yacht Club.

Yesterday afternoon Mike comes over to the Banjo. Says he is bringing me a present. Out comes a so-called series drogue. A piece of heavy weather equipment which is towed from astern in very heavy weather. Your life can be saved by that piece of equipment.

And Mike made it up for us as a gift. A piece of safety equipment. Hopefully we will never need it, but if we do, we will think of Mike Jones from the yacht AMOK.

Thanks Mike!

It's bed time now.

Hopefully Tanya will post something here while we are at sea.

Please follow our progress on www.thegovernorscup.co.za

We had tracking devises fitted today so our tracks will be on the race website.

Thanks for all the calls over the last few days.

Andre de Jager,

William Brooks who called and offered a lot of help.

Oom Ampie,

Kerri Smith,

Con Meyer,

My Mom,

Jana,

Hannes,

the Pennypinchers guys who are comming out to the start.

And, and and...............

Saturday in Simonstown

Saturday in Simonstown.

Start day is Wednesday, 5 days away.

This morning there was a little parade up the main street of Simonstown for all the race entries.

Rather nostalgic for me was that we started the proceedings at SAS Simonsberg which is where I was based when I did my national service in the Navy, way back in 1975/1976.

Anyway, Banjo was posted to walk right at the back. But just in front of two guys playing bagpipes. They, in turn were followed by a single bergie who just joined in and who was playing a pennywhistle. The folk at the front were lucky, they had some Capies playing jive music.

At the village square we had a ceremony and the "mixing of the waters". The Banjo poured it's St Francis Bay water into the inverted ship's bell with the waters of the other boats' home ports.

We were also handed our "permission to sail" certificates. The "ba" of Banjo put us first on the list. I felt so relieved. All the work, the expense, the dreams.......................

Afterwards we took Chris Lee, the Commodore of False Bay Y.C. for a sail. It was his first outing on a trimaran. He liked it very much. We also tried out the spinnaker which Andrew McKenzie is lending us. It worked beautifully. I think that's gonna be our working kite.

The weather is looking good for Wednesday.

A little bit Windy.

The South Easter has been blowing here. Non-stop since the weekend.

So what?

It's been blowing about 45 to 50 knots. That's what!
I took this picture earlier today. That is a waterfall behind Simonstown and the wind is driving the water UPWARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And the folk down here tells me it's gonna blow like that on start day too.



That means we are having it on the nose for the 18 mile beat out of Simonstown to Cape Point. Not the best way for me to start an ocean passage. Not with my leaning towards mal de mer, that's for shure.




The talk at the Club is all about the gales and how to get out of here if it blows on Wednesday. Jeremy and I have talked it through. Our strategy is going to be to just nurse the Banjo to Cape Point and to get out of False Bay in one piece. Double reefed and storm jib. Not to worry about what the others are doing. We will start racing once we have rounded the Point and we are aiming for St Helena.




But deep down I believe it's going to be nice weather on start day.




I had earlier spent the day fiddling around with the two solar panels and fitting some plastic bushes to their mountings. Just to make it smoother to adjust their orientation to the sun.




Late this afternoon Jeremy brought our 50 litres of bottled water. We stowed most of it in the lockers under the saloon bunks. The rest will go behind the backrests of the bunks and under the cockpit floor.




On Monday we will purchase our food and get that stashed away too. I have never been so ready to set sail.

Pennypinchers

Pennypinchers.........................it envelopes our lives.

I just can't get rid of them. Well the mannetjie is going to St Helena too. Pennypinchers (thanks Theodore and Johan) has given us a few Bucks. Not much, but is all helps.

We have spent it on a video cam to shoot footage for the guys making a movie on the Race (Supersport Feb next year). Also on some branded Banjo clothes and the rest was used to buy airtime for the Satphone. Now THAT was expensive! We had to buy a minimum amount.......a lot more than we need. We only needed enough to put a daily call through to report our position, but was forced to buy a lot more.

So I am now making arrangements to put a call through to Eben Human at Die Burger to give him a daily update.

Jeremy reckons we can exchange the rest of the airtime at St Helena for beers and meals. I.e. we go to a pub, ask another competitor if he would like to phone home and if yes, he can buy us a beer or a meal in exchange for using our phone.

I think it is a brilliant idea. The more they talk, the more we can eat and drink.