CAPE TOWN, SA TO ST HELENA

CAPE TOWN, SA TO ST. HELENA

JANUARY 26 TO FEBRUARY 9, 2017

We departed the V & A Marina at 0745 hrs on Thursday January 26^th for Jamestown, St Helena 1700 nm distant.  It was a beautiful day with light winds so we had to motor about 15 nm to get out of Cape Town and past Robben Is.  The wind was S’ly at 12-15 kts and the seas were less than 3’.  We set a double reefed mainsail and full genoa and started to sail at 6 kts; very pleasant sailing conditions.  The wind held in the South but the seas started to increase to about 7’ which is just fine for this part of the world.

The run from Cape Town to St Helena is called “The Milk Run” because a vessel picks up the SE Trade Winds about two days North of Cape Town.  Many cruisers choose to follow the coast and call in at Luderitz, Namibia and then Walvis Bay.  This provides a slightly better wind angle for sailing rather than running dead down wind.  The downside is that one encounters fog and coastal weather.  The straight rhumb line to St. Helena has no dangers other than a few seamounts called the Valdivia banks which are easily avoided by staying to the East.

January 27-28 continued to give us good speed and pleasant conditions: 129nm and 132nm respectively noon-to-noon.  By the early hours of January 29^th, the S’ly wind started to go light so we had to motor 0100 – 0830 hrs when a WSW’ly wind kicked in at 10-12 kts.  Distance made good on January 29^th was 119 nm from noon-to-noon.  January 30th brought in increasingly light winds and, by 0600 hrs, we started motoring and continued throughout the day.  Noon –to-noon distance was 106 nm.  Winds continued light for January 31^st and noon-to-noon distance was 91 nm.  We were experiencing a counter current when we should have had the Benguela Current going with us.  February 1^st continued with light winds from the SW and delivered an unimpressive 91 nm noon-to-noon: at least we were sailing!  February 2^nd  brought in the SE’ly Trades at 25-30 kts with increasing seas to 10’.  The noon-noon position gave me 141 nm.  It’s feast or famine out here!  By February 3^rd, we were finally enjoying the steady SE-SSE Trade winds.  The noon-noon position gave us 123 nm.  February 4^th continued with 118 nm run noon-to-noon.  February 5^th delivered 121 nm noon-to-noon.  We set the clock back two hours to UTC time.  February 6^th came in with 118 nm noon-noon.  The SE Trades were holding, a little light, but there.  February 7th came in with 106 nm from noon-to-noon.  The SE Trades were going light but still there.  February 8^th gave us a boost with 125 nm noon-to-noon.  February 9^th delivered 127 nm noon-to-noon with 24 nm to go to Jamestown.  We made fast in the Jamestown mooring field to one of the #22 mooring buoy (15-55.5’ S; 005-43.5’ W) at 1748 UTC.

This was a pleasant sail over a long distance.  Once the South African and Namibian coastal conditions are distanced, the SE Trades start to become established: light at first but becoming more steady day by day.  There were a few days of strong S-SW’ly winds in the 25-30 kt range but, since we were running with them, or had them on port or stbd. quarter, it was not too rough.  Once the SE Trades kicked in, only squalls brought in higher winds and then they would suck out all the wind and leave us becalmed for awhile until everything filled back in.