The Yachting Lifestyle

The following is a guest post from our long-time friend and frequent sailing companion, Geert van der Kolk:  

While Jon and Jennifer are chasing big game in the upcountry, I am keeping an eye on the boat. It’s not a very strenuous job. Ile de Grace is safely moored at the Zululand Yacht Club, and pretty much takes care of herself. I’m supposed to keep the batteries charged, but the windmill and the solar panels can do this without any assistance from me. Only on a windless and overcast day do I have to run the engine for an hour, a task that involves pushing two buttons.

A chance to do some real boatwork presents itself every time the wind is from the south. Richards Bay is a big industrial port. With a southerly, black coal dust and a fine brown muck that may be pulverized bauxite ore, is blown in our direction, and comes to rest on the decks and the cabin roof. Then it’s time to get out the hose.

Otherwise, the living is easy in Zululand. I wake up at six to the sound of birds whose calls I do not know – a sure sign that one is in a new place. First I go for a run. You have to do this early, to beat the heat. When we arrived a week ago, it was raining hard, and the South African coast appeared grim and forbidding under the low clouds. In fact, just north of the Yacht Club is a beautiful sandy beach flanked by high dunes. It’s a perfect place to run when the tide is out.

Ile de Grace is stuffed to the gills with food, and if you’re lazy you can eat at the Pelican Grill behind the marina office. For the truly thirsty sailors there is also a bar that opens at eleven in the morning. Entertainment is provided by the club’s resident monkeys. They are grey, the size of small dogs, and have a very long tail. They are cute and energetic, but absolutely not allowed on the boat. They pee all over the place, and tear everything apart looking for food.

The Yacht Club has an excellent internet connection, and on board Ile de Grace there are no fewer than four laptops. I am borrowing Jon’s iBook to do the final editing of my new novel, If all goes well, the book will come out in Amsterdam in March. Getting the book ready in Internet Cafes and through long overseas phone calls would have been much more difficult. Life is good in Zululand.

Jon and Jennifer are returning from their safari on Thursday. I will leave the boat soon after, to start an overland trek to East Africa. For the blog, I would like to record a few highlights of my time on Ile de Grace.

I had sailed on the boat before, almost two years ago, on a coastwise jaunt from North Carolina to Florida. We had brisk westerly winds, nasty beam seas, and almost everybody on board was seasick. Crossing from Mauritius, the wind was all over the place, at times veering or backing a full 360 degrees in 24 hours. At other times the wind died altogether, only to pick up again to a lively 25-30 knots when we approached the South African coast.

This made for interesting sailing. As the winds changed, we had to trim or let out sail, gybe or come about, reef, and soon after shake out the reef again, set the gennaker in light air, and quickly take it in again as the wind picked up. One day we didn’t do this quite quickly enough, and shredded the sail.

I learned a lot about sailing a big catamaran. The boat does not point very high, so you can’t go upwind without using the engine. The engine is also used while keeping the boat into the wind to reef the main, or when coming about.

The thing I mostly had to get used to was the concept of “reefing by the book.” On a monohull, like my 30-foot Arpege, the boat’s angle of heel and the pressure on the rudder will tell you when you’re overpowered. A catamaran does not give you this feedback. The boat stays level, and will, with increasing wind, simply speed up until the mast goes over the side.

In ile de Grace’s cabin, Jon and Jennifer keep a white binder labeled “Basic Boat Info.” I read the contents cover to cover. The very first page is a table with apparent wind speeds at different points of sail, and the corresponding number of reefs in main and jib. Since ile de Grace does not have a backstay, the boat can carry more sail going upwind than downwind. On a monohull, the opposite is true.

As soon as Keith and I were familiar with the basic systems of the boat, and could stand watch alone, we went to a very clever schedule that was new to me. From 6 AM to midnight, we all stood three hour watches. After midnight, when getting up or staying up is most disruptive to sleep and rest, watch was only two hours. As there were nine watches for four people, there was a gentle shift of on-time every 24 hours. We were at sea only two weeks, but everybody got plenty of rest. I believe that with this watch schedule, one could go on for months.

And finally, a true highlight was the company I kept. One great thing about offshore sailing is that you get time to talk to each other. This is especially true when it gets dark, and you can’t clean or repair things anymore. Give me a starry night at sea anytime, and I will happily listen to your stories.

Geert van der Kolk