CAPE TO RIO 1993

Martin Buss

The Cape of Good Hope might well be `the fairest Cape in the whole circumference of the earth' in Sir Francis Drake's opinion, but the first name given to it by the early Portuguese navigators was `The Cape of Storms'. The Cape itself is steep and rocky with a good light which is often obscured by mist and fog. There are some horrible rocks just off the Cape, but the local sailors pride themselves on sailing inside Bellows Rock and South West Reefs in order to steal a mile or so during the annual Double Cape Races.

At 35S, the Cape gets brushed by the westerly fronts that circle the Antarctic in the Roaring Forties, two contrary ocean currents collide in the vicinity, and the ocean floor shelves up onto the Aghulas Bank throwing up steep seas. All in all, the ingredients for a fierce cocktail of stormy weather are all present. Cape Horn has the more formidable reputation, but having rounded the Cape of Good Hope some dozen times including two Double Cape Races, I am quite satisfied that our Cape can hold its head high in the stakes for nasty weather. This is the training ground for the yachtsmen of Cape Town. It is quite understandable, therefore, that when they were offered the chance of a warm downwind sail across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro they signed up in their dozens.

After a seventeen year hiatus, the Cape to Rio Race was sailed again in January 1993. While it is organised as a race, a considerable number of cruising yachts join in. It gives them the chance to cross the Atlantic in the company of a large fleet and a South African Navy guardship with twice daily radio schedules. All the hype and excitement of a major event exists before the send-off in Cape Town and after the arrival in Rio, which is nicely timed for the Rio Carnival in mid February. The international racing yachts with their rock star crews roar ahead and finish up to two weeks before the more sedate family cruisers, but the cruisers have fun and many continue to the Caribbean or even circumnavigate.

I was privileged to be accepted as a member of the OCC in May this year, my qualifying voyage being the 3640 mile crossing from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro in January. My 34ft Bermudan rigged GRP sloop is called Force Five, which is a nice wind for the boat. She was designed to be strong enough to handle the seas off the Cape of Storms, and has a masthead rig and a wingkeel. She is very comfortably fitted out for short-handed cruising and the race regulations required that she have full safety equipment, including an SSB Radio, GPS, EPIRB and liferaft.

The crew was carefully chosen some nine months before the voyage so we would have time to prepare for the first ocean crossing any of us had made. Brian Pemberton was navigator and a watch captain. He is an old friend who has shared with me for many years a longing to go to sea. He and I obtained our Yachtmaster Offshore qualifications and were able to satisfy the Race Committee that we could get across the ocean by celestial navigation if necessary. The crew, Gavin Dold and Brian Pearson, both passed their Coastal Skipper exams, obtained radio licenses and we all did a merchant marine first aid course, including a grisly evening spent in the casualty ward of a local hospital on a Friday night! We did several long weekend sails, including a Double Cape Race, so that we would be able to find our way around the decks at night and could execute a `hat-overboard' manoeuvre without thinking.

On 9 January 1993 the great day dawned, with a gale force south-easter blustering across Table Bay. This kept the numbers of the spectator fleet within reasonable bounds as with eighty-three yachts jockeying for the start there was quite enough congestion. Nevertheless the excitement was terrific -- hundreds of boats, air force aerobatics, beflagged naval vessels, and 35-40 knots of wind whipping the bay white with spray. We shot out of Table Bay on a course of 305°, trailing behind the 60 and 70 footers, some of which blew out the first of their store of spinnakers in the first few minutes of the race.

We streaked past Robben Island and by nightfall the Dassen Island light was fading astern. The first night of an ocean crossing is memorable indeed. It got dark and the realisation dawned that we were facing a month of days and nights and over 3600 miles at sea out of sight of land. The rough seas meant that Gavin turned down his homemade steak and kidney pie, but he manfully stood his watch from midnight to 0600. We were hand steering with two reefs in the mainsail and one reef in the genoa and it was hard work avoiding broaches in the dark. Came the dawn and we all felt that we had been blooded as more than coastal yachtsmen at last. The wind dropped to F5 the second day out and we tried out the 1.5 gm spinnaker. It was exhilarating sailing, especially once night fell again. Perhaps we were a bit overconfident, because at 0200 we had a full scale broach -- crosstrees in the waves, the spinnaker and main full of water. There was a certain amount of dancing around on the foredeck in underpants, sea boots and safety harnesses before everything was brought under control. We were all wide awake and excited by the time we were off sailing again under a more conservative running rig of reefed main and poled out genoa, so we invented a wonderful cocktail of hot drinking chocolate with a splash of rum to celebrate our survival.

Within three days we were far enough north of Cape Town to catch the South East Trades and for a week it was all we had read and dreamt about -- fluffy white clouds, steady winds and warmer weather. Two Southern Right whales passed by in line astern giving us excitement and some concern. Wandering Albatrosses stayed in sight up to 30°S. One day we saw an odd-shaped black object catching up from astern -- it was not a yacht and was too small to be a ship or a fishing vessel. As it got closer we recognised it as a submarine and all said fervently `we hope it's friendly'. It turned out to be the South African Navy Submarine Maria van Riebeeck on her way to take part in naval exercises off Uruguay. We had a pleasant chat with the Commander on VHF while we took photos of them and the crew on top of the conning tower took photos of us.

The South Atlantic High was rather far north at that time, and though the leaders got past it the middle of the fleet were slowed down, while us tail-enders sailed straight into it and stopped dead, 2000 miles from Cape Town and 1650 miles from Rio. For four days and four nights we sat on an oily calm sea, drifting slowly with the 1 knot north-westerly current, happily in the right direction. My sponge fell overboard so I had to swim a couple of hundred metres to fetch it. I stopped halfway and floated with my arms outstretched and my face in the water with my eyes open. It was an amazing sensation, akin to flying 5500 metres above the earth -- the depth of the clear blue Atlantic below me as I stared down into it. After a while a tinge of fear at what might be in those dark depths touched me and I hastily retrieved my sponge and swam back to the yacht.

After four days becalmed we held a democratic crew meeting. Simple arithmetic showed that it was now impossible to finish the race under sail within the 30 day time limit. We took a vote, and regretfully radioed the guardship that we were starting our motor. Several of the other tail-enders also retired at the same time. We motored without any wind for a further three days, then picked up a respectable north-easterly 200 miles from Trinidade Island at 22°S. Once again it was splendid sailing on a westerly course with spectacular sunsets and sunrises. Handsteering on my watch from midnight to 06OO was easy as `the star to steer her by' was the head of Orion for the first ten days, then his belt for ten days, then his foot for ten days. We saw very few birds and none of the other yachts or any ships for twenty-six out of the thirty days. We caught a beautiful 30kg yellowfin tunny on a handline, but after we had cut off as much as we could eat we found that we had to throw most of the fish away. It seemed wasteful and not right to kill such a lovely fish when we really did not need the food, so we stopped fishing.

At midnight, 400 miles off the Brazilian coast, we spotted the lights of a vessel 45° off the port bow. The bearing remained constant. We turned on our radar, and got no echo from the ship's radar.* We turned on our deck lights which illuminated the spinnaker like a 10m high lightbulb. We called on 2182 MHz and VHF Channel 16 with no response, and when we were very close we could see that there was no one at all on the lighted bridge. If we had not altered course he would have hit us.

We unashamedly navigated the whole way by GPS. We ate very well and Brian Pemberton's ham coated with mustard and black peppercorns, roasted slowly with tinned mushrooms and peas, was so much in demand that he never had to do any washing up. I could guarantee to waken the crew with smiles on their faces by baking bread at 0530 -- the aroma of freshly baked bread is very special. The recipe is simple: 250g of self-raising flour, a pinch of salt and a bottle of Guinness Stout -- just mix it together and put it in the oven in a non-stick bread tin for one hour. It comes out brown and crusty and doesn't last through breakfast.

We picked up 25-30 knots from the north-east and massive seas for the last three days and made over 150 miles a day. At dawn on 8 February we spotted the Cabo Frio light after twenty-nine days at sea, and tied up at the Yate Club de Rio de Janeiro under the Sugar Loaf Mountain fifteen minutes before the start of the prize giving party that evening. And what a party it was!

Force Five was brought back across the South Atlantic to Cape Town by a friend. Then in August this year, at age fifty-five, I took early retirement to set off on a planned five year circumnavigation. The first leg is Cape Town to St Helena with a crew, then singlehanded from there across the Atlantic -- and the Equator -- to Margharita Island off Venezuela where my wife Mona joins me for eight months cruising the Caribbean islands. I shall be flying my 0CC burgee proudly, and look forward to meeting fellow members during my travels.