Well folks, the time has finally arrived to put all my experiments into practice. I am the first mate (Second in charge) on a boat for delivery from Cape Town, South Africa to Fort Lauderdale, USA. The boat is a Leopard 39 built by Robertson & Caine in Cape Town.
One is quite nervous at the start of the final preparations. Lots of things to keep in mind and lots to remember. I guess the psychologists will call it a stressful time.
Firstly, there is the boat. Does she have all her fittings? Is all the safety equipment on board? Where did we stow it? And so on. We have long check lists, so it becomes reasonably easy. But this boat does not come with a barometer. Is it significant?
Well, we will be arriving in the Caribbean in the middle of the hurricane season. And the only means of weather forecast at our disposal is the cloud patterns, the wind and the atmospheric pressure. We do not have internet access on the boat out at sea, hence the requirement for a barometer.
The next aspect to consider is the food. The boat has an auto-helm, so the work load of steering the boat is negligible. However, there is the aspect of crew morale to keep in mind. The boat is quite cramped, even for a catamaran. The skipper is a man of six foot four (about 2 meters). He can barely stand upright on the aft deck and needs to bend a bit to stand in the saloon. The rest of the crew, being the other two of us, are both in the region of 185 cm (six foot). The saloon does not have room for the three of us to be standing at the same time. So one can imagine that one needs some creature comforts on board.
This time it is with baking bread and growing sprouts aboard. Flour and dried seeds are easy to store. The sourdough perhaps more tricky, but we do have a refrigerator / freezer.
And we have to supplement our diet with fresh fish. These we have to catch along the way. So there is some risk there. But normally the fish that you catch are quite large and one fish will provide at least four to six meals.
So life is interesting. We also worry about the weather, so we make sure that we can get weather info. In the event that we see bad weather coming, we also have a satellite phone that we can use to phone a friend to search the internet for weather info for us.
But still there is a niggling little voice in the back of your head that tells you that you have not prepared properly. And the closer you get to the date of departure, the louder this voice gets.
Time for writing this blog post.
Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2012-12-12
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