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From: John Titterton (no email)
Date: Sat Aug 23 2003 - 15:19:00 EDT
Ian,
There are two routes - the long and interesting one via the Atlantic,
Panama, Pacific to Oz and then the short and rough one. For the short
and rough one, head out of Cape Town around February, turn south and
when you get to Cape Point get some east in your course and keep going
until you hit 40 south. Stop off at Amsterdam Island (37 deg 50 S 77 deg
33 E - there is a wooden hut inside the crater and you can anchor inside
the crater). When you start getting to 100E get some north in your
course towards Fremantle. You are in Oz - with the wind on your back
most of the time!
Seriously, study the weather routing charts and decide how you think
best to go and then ask around. The above course (the rough one) can be
done by anybody with good experience and who is not afraid of following
seas that tower way above your mast height. It also helps to have a
tough boat as you may suffer many knock downs. Some people have done it
with not a worry. Geoff Hilton-Barber was a blind fellow who did the
trip single-handed a few years back and made it safely - I have pasted
his story below for whoever wants the read.
John Titterton
Cape Town
Blind Sailor Crosses Ocean Solo
by Richard Crockett
Geoff Hilton Barber is a very remarkable man, and not just because, as a
blind man, he completed a solo passage from Durban to Fremantle via the
Roaring forties, but because he is a humble yet determined man who likes
to achieve, and does not let his blindness handicap his spirit of
adventure.
And, what's more important, is that Geoff did not make this passage to
prove anything to the world, or for that matter the cause of blind
people - he did it first and foremost for himself.
This is no easy passage for anyone to make, and the fact that he did it
single-handed in a Charger 33, a former racing boat, is all the more
remarkable.
But for Geoff, despite his handicap, he cannot stop enthusing about the
passage, and what he got from it, plus of course the trials and
tribulations which go with a passage of this nature.
One of the first questions I asked him was about some of the highlights
of the trip. His reply somewhat astounded me, as for most sailors, to be
becalmed would have been anything but a highlight on a passage. "It was
December 16, a public holiday in South Africa, and as I was becalmed I
decided to take the day off and have my own holiday" he said. "I was
sitting at the mast really feeling part of everything out there despite
being miles away from anybody, when a whale came up and blew next to me.
That was an exceptional experience."
Another fond memory was during his first night when crossing the Agulhas
current off Durban when the wind was blowing 35 - 37 knots in the middle
of the night and Abacus was going like a dream. "I just had the staysail
up and all the electrical instruments working perfectly, and I was
sitting in the companionway under the spray dodger listening to all this
going on outside. I didn't get wet as I was going about 30 degrees off a
beam reach and she was just flying. We did 75 miles in the first twelve
hours, and at midnight I had a couple of beers and turned up some
music."
But life at sea as we all know is rarely just good memories, and its the
down side which test man and boat. Geoff's first real test came on his
second night at sea when he had a pretty severe electrical storm. "That
was probably the scariest part of the trip as there was no wind, a
helluva lot of rain, and a very big electrical storm. I didn't get hit,
but I really felt very vulnerable."
Geoff concedes that he was blessed with generally good conditions
throughout his trip as probably ninety percent of the time the wind was
either from behind or on the beam. "Less than 10 percent of the time I
had south easterlies which were the last winds I wanted". An unexpected
bonus, in retrospect, for Geoff was being forced into the roaring
forties. He had originally planned to go down to between 34 and 36
degrees south, but ended up at 38 degrees where he picked up lots of
good north westerly, south westerly and westerly winds.
But later when he was way past Amsterdam Island at about 84 degrees
east, there was just no wind and a massive high coming through. He was
advised to go further south, and this course took him to nearly 42
degrees south where he had a lot of favourable winds, doing 14 degrees
of longitude in just under nine days, and most of the time with no sail
up! During that time he got knocked down a few times, and took a lot of
water in the boat. "I think that this is what knocked my alternator out"
he said.
His time 'down south' was difficult, although Geoff plays it down
somewhat. While he was at 41 south, he was alerted to a big low pressure
system forming, and was again advised to head up back to 36 south. But
this was easier said than done, as he found it difficult sailing across
the big seas. "The wind wasn't too bad, but cutting across those waves
was. I don't know what it was, but every time I tried to go across them
I'd get knocked sideways and then surf sideways. Abacus just wasn't
powerful enough to go sideways across the waves. Those conditions kept
me down there a couple of days longer than I wanted, but eventually a
southwester came and I was able to shoot out of there to 38 south."
But in the southern ocean a force 8 wind blew his wind generator from
its mountings, and without that and his alternator, Geoff knew that he
could be in trouble particularly as he was still 900 miles from
Fremantle, and needed power to drive his 'talking' instruments as well
as his e-mail and Inmarsat tracking systems. He knew that without power
he would lose his ability to navigate. "I had back up batteries for the
GPS, so I could have found Fremantle, but I think that my team and wife
would have worried so much that they would have started a search" he
said.
It was at this point that he obtained assistance. Although he had not
requested it, Geoff was pretty relieved about it. "The fact that I had
to have assistance, to me, is okay. I just think that if I had had to be
rescued, if I had tried to be brave all the way, and then lost all
communication and an air search had been implemented, all the hysteria
about a singlehanded blind sailor would have been really adverse. I am
at ease with that decision. The whole passage was a fantastic
experience, so the fact that I didn't make the last 300 miles didn't
detract from what I felt down in the 40s, and on the calm days when I
fed the birds and heard them running along the water. I experienced all
the sensations of sailing, getting up in the middle of the night to put
in a reef or drop the main, heavy weather and the calm weather, so, to
have run the risk of actually then having to have a major rescue just to
prove a point, I think would have actually screwed the whole thing up."
Two ships played a part in assisting Geoff. The first one was a Japanese
fishing patrol vessel which stayed with him for four days. To make sure
that he was able to sail out of the southern ocean unassisted, he
switched off all his electrics and just had handheld VHF communication
with them twice a day. Then, the MSC Carina was the other vessel which
diverted three hundred miles from their course to transfer Roy Bowden,
one of his shore crew, plus additional batteries.
Geoff says that he thoroughly enjoyed the southern ocean. "It was just
magnificent down there. It's dark and cold and bleak and it wasn't
threatening, despite being knocked down."
At the time of the knockdown he was at the galley making coffee while
Abacus was running with the sea when she got smacked from the quarter.
The bow went down and Geoff was thrown over the galley and slid along
the ceiling on his back, and ended up head first against the forward
bulkhead with his bum in the air. "It just happened. I never heard it
coming, and I'd hate to think what it would have been like if I was in
the cockpit. The wave opened the sliding hatch and filled the boat with
a good six inches of water. I got a helluva fright because I had no
inkling of it."
Geoff does not believe that being blind was a particular hindrance on
his passage. "I sailed by feel, by balance and with my instruments
talking to me. I relied on my talking instruments a helluva lot, and did
my navigation with GPS. My instruments told me at what angle the wind
was coming onto the boat, so I could set my sails accordingly, and
reefing was easy as the batt cars on my main were extremely efficient."
Geoff found the navigation very easy. "That was no problem as my chart
was in my head and all the shallow areas were waypoints on my GPS. I
could put in waypoints and move from waypoint to waypoint, so on the
first leg for example, besides knowing exactly where I was in latitude
and longitude, I knew my distance and bearing to the Walter shoals. Then
I moved to the next shallow area and then the north and south
coordinates of the Bellini fracture, and then it was Amsterdam Island,
so I always knew where I was going. Passage making has its down side,
and despite his positive attitude, Geoff understandably experienced some
tough times, particularly with his handicap coupled to the fact that
this was his first singlehanded passage.
"I suppose I had a few very lonely days, particularly over Christmas,
and found that I was often very tired. I was often up before dawn and
sometimes hardly came down during the day, so when I did go below, I was
really depressed from being so tired. As a result I would just sit for
ages and not eat a proper meal and sometimes just go to bed like that,
so I had to jack myself up and make sure I did cook a proper meal and
get enough sleep." His reception in Fremantle was something Geoff says
that he will always remember. As he arrived a day earlier than expected,
just a few boats went out to meet him. "There was a lot of screaming and
shouting from my family, but also there were David Hicks, the youngest
person to sail around the world, and John Saunders who had been around
the world three times non-stop. Fremantle Sailing Club's hospitality was
fantastic, and they provided moorings, cranes and the like at no charge,
and even threw a cocktail party for me. And as for Mediterranean
Shipping Company, they are an amazing company to deal with. Nothing was
too much trouble for them and Abacus was even shipped back to Durban by
them. In fact, there are so many people like Daly's Insurance, Wilbur
Ellis, Autohelm, Musto and so many others to thank without whom I would
not have been able to embark on this passage.
For now Geoff is easing himself back into his work at the Natal Society
for the Blind, and while he would love to do another ocean crossing
again in the future, he has no ambitions to do it singlehanded!
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Wilson [mailto:]
Sent: 23 August 2003 05:15
To:
Subject: [world-cruising] Cruising Routes from Capetown
Hi there,
Does amyone have any experience about cruising from Cape Town to
Australia and can they offer good routes to use.
Thanking you, Ian
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