ON PASSAGE

An Element of Risk and an Uncertain Outcome: A Whale’s Tale

Part One: The author and crew and adventurous rounding of South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope on their way up the Indian Ocean to Dubai by Bill Biewenga

IT HAD ALL OF THE TRAPPINGS OF an adventure unlike any other I’d undertaken: a delivery from Cape Town, South Africa to Dubai – during a period of increasing reports of piracy along the most direct route. While I’m more than merely familiar with weather routing, this would certainly add a new spin to the art of selecting a route. And piracy wouldn’t be the only factor in determining how we’d proceed from Point A to Point B. Nirvana is a Gunboat 48 catamaran. Purchased in Newport, RI, the vessel was sailed to Cape Town by the owner, Monish Saini, and several crewmembers. I met Monish in Cape Town to help with the remainder of the trip halfway around the world. While in Cape Town, the vessel had the routine maintenance chores attended to, the rig inspected by Gunboat’s riggers, and re-provisioning was begun. The team was complete when

Lia Ditton arrived on the scene at the Cape Grace Marina.

Provisioning, stowing gear and further inspections of the boat were completed as we awaited a suitable weather window for our departure. Within a week we were underway, heading south towards the Cape of Good Hope, the Agulhas Bank, the stop in Mauritius, the Chagos Banks, The Maldives, and Lakshadweep before arriving in Dubai, northwest of the Gulf of Oman in the Middle East. As a parting gesture while leaving Cape Town’s Table Bay, we were bid farewell by a humpback whale breaching and waving his tail at us. In retrospect, I’ve come to wonder if he might have been issuing a warning – or perhaps mooning us for leaving on a Friday.

Seas on the Agulhas Bank can be exceptionally rough. The water becomes relatively shallow and the Agulhas Current runs southward along S. Africa’s eastern coast, bending towards the southwest along the southern tip of Africa. It’s a brisk current, reaching four to six knots and more, and when the wind is against the current, the waves can become particularly steep. Along the eastern South African coast, there are places where 100-foot standing waves will materialize during storm conditions. In an area of the world where winds can be strong, the waves can achieve monumental proportions. Our preference, of course was to await light to moderate winds to minimize the drama and get us out of Africa. Monish wore a sweatshirt that read, “Africa For Life”. Over the next few weeks we would wonder if that was a sentence handed down by a judge on high.

For the most part, the weather cooperated, and as we progressed across the Agulhas Bank, it appeared that we would make good time towards our initial destination of Mauritius. At 9:00 pm one night, less than a week into the trip, we were jolted into a hard reality. We hit something with our port hull. I ran forward, out onto the nets with Lia close behind me. While running, I quickly

watertight bulkheads forward. We would need to stop, and with Port Elizabeth to our north, we altered course.

looked up, and the rig was OK. With light in hand, it was quickly apparent that there was damage to the sacrificial bow at the waterline. Whatever we’d hit – whale, log, or other flotsam – it had been hard enough to cause damage that required attention, but soft enough or a glancing blow that didn’t break through the The folks at Gunboat have been exceptionally helpful to owners of their boats over the years. When the need arises, they rally to offer whatever assistance they can. This was no exception. Following a few emails via our Iridium connection and a few voice conversations, they were able to sort out some talented assistance for us in Port St. Francis, southwest of Port Elizabeth.

Port St. Francis is a small enclave of chokka boats (vessels designed for squid – calamari – fishing) and multihull boat builders. Somehow friends of mine whom I hadn’t seen since the 1985 Whitbread Round the World

Race, had also fetched up on this fine shore years earlier. Armed with friends of the people at Gunboat, former shipmates, and their neighbors, we were able to employ some creative thinking to get Nirvana back in action.

The damage was below the waterline, and we needed to get the port hull up, out of the water so the fiberglass could be ground back and repaired. I’d heard about some people in St. Maarten using airbags to lift boats out of the water 10 or 12 inches, and thought that might be one way to get us up and the repairs started. The local talent had a better idea. Using a “mini drydock” of sorts that is normally used to store small power boats out of the water, we were able to submerge the contraption, move it under the port hull, and inflate the PVC pipes that

made up the “mini drydock”. The hull was lifted the 12 inches that was necessary to work on the problem.

Working with 220v power tools in that wet environment is not for the feint of heart or the casual user, and I doubted whether the technique would have been OSHA approved. Care was exercised, however, and the task was completed within a week of our original altercation with the whale or floating debris. Following a farewell South African braai - otherwise known as a BBQ - that will be long remembered, we were back underway. Once again, we would need to face the Agulhas Current and time our crossing to the vagaries of the weather.

Similar to the Gulf Stream along Florida’s eastern coast, a counter-current exists between the Agulhas Current and South Africa’s eastern coast. The lighter, counter-current is located within the first few miles of the coastline. While we awaited more favorable northerly winds to cross the south-flowing Agulhas Current, we would motorsail along the coastline.

South Africa’s south eastern coastline is a beautiful expanse of endless sand dunes. Our late September passage along that coastline coincided with a whale migration coming down from Somalia. Friends with whom we’d been in contact regarding both repairs as well as piracy updates, mentioned that the waters we were traversing would have quite a few whales.

Whether that was good news or bad was yet to be determined at that point. But when one breached less than 50 feet from us, flailing the air with his tale, it was time to pay attention. As we worked our way northward, we passed scores of them, each time looking to see if there were others in their respective pods which might be in front of us. Often, they waved their tails at us. Was it in a sort of mystical farewell sign or as a warning? The following two weeks of the trip seemed to imply it was more of the latter.

Part two will appear in the next edition of Multihulls Today.

Bill Biewenga has sailed more than 400,000 miles offshore, racing and delivering boats. He is a moderator for the U.S. Sailing Safety at Sea Seminars and an expert weather router. He lives on Cape Cod.