News from Dixi Rollar

Hello everybody,hope things going fine. Well,almost 3 month when I send our last email. So,here another up date. We have met some yachtis all who have been in Cape Town: Ryan&Brenda Cilliers on 'Island Khaya',Alistair&Sue Easton on 'African Star' ( both couples from South African), John on 'Faraway' and Nick&Jill and they daughter Roxy on 'Mallymawk'. Officially we became a Godparents of a girl and a boy,so for someone didn't want kids I have 4: 2 step daughters and 2 godchildren,probably the best motherhood ever ! Hahahaha. We manage to put the boat on the river bank and scrape 1 1/2 year of growth of the bottom of the boat and antifoul her,all that happen in 2 days(see the photos below). We are waiting for the wind to turn in our favour,but look's like Steve's visa will expired before that happens,so we will have to motor sail almost a day to get away from the coast and beat against the wind and current before we can sail down. So,we will be set sail on the first weekend of September,that will be on the 3rd or 4th.Steve 's birthday will be on the Ocean(04/09). We put some adds on find a crew website,but no luck. My niece would come with us if wasn't for passport issue. So,just myself,Steve and God will set sail. Who didn't want that crew member,this last one is the most qualified! Hope to see some of you in Cape Town before Xmas! Love and Beijos Renata&Steve

Roger Orpen's son Chester joins the tallship "Stadt Amsterdam"

Life on a tallship is quite interesting, not to put too fine a point on it. For a young school-leaver it will be an amazing adventure, and I must say I envy the lad when comparing with the two years national service we had in the bad old days! 

Read about it in the HBYC Cruising World section.

Stadt Amsterdam under full sail

Jeanne Socrates, SV Nereida

For me, one of the nicest things about being part of a club like HBYC, situated at the foot of Africa, is the string of amazing people who visit us from time to time. The latest is Jeanne Socrates, a very brave woman and sailor, who is singlehanding her Najad 380 all over the world, in a quest to do a singlehanded non-stop circumnavigation. Jeanne gave a talk at the HBYC clubhouse last Thursday evening, telling us of her adventures, including a vicious knockdown off Cape Horn. In her brief time in Cape Town she has climbed every mountain, seen every beach, and even done some club sailing! Fit and fearless!!!

left-click for fullsize

Jeanne's home, SV Nereida, parked in the HBYC Marina

Of all the long-distance cruisers to come this way, I think this one must be the neatest, cleanest best-kept example of the lot. Note the handy cutter rig, and the ample powerstation on the gantry. Inside she is very well fitted and comfortable.



We wish Jeanne all the best for her future adventures! Read her blog and website at http://www.svnereida.com/. Her radio (ham) callsign is KC2IOV.

Christmas in July!

"Christmas in July" was undoubtedly one of the best parties at HBYC in recent years!

I simply don't have words to explain this one, but the pictures tell the story quite nicely!

See the full gallery here!

This event was remarkable in that so many people were involved - all helping to make it happen - just the way a club should be! Never mind our Commodore and the First Lady - sporting legends have no bounds, or boundaries it seems! Never mind the rest of 'em too. You know who you are - Berend, Parker, Henk, Henry etc. Throw in a couple of wigs, hats and some fishnet stockings, mix with gluwein, and your camera will pay for itself in minutes!

In the true spirit of Christmas, a quick whip-around raised quite a few hundred rands for the bar staff, which el-Commodore graciously presented on behalf of the party! Thanks to all of them.

All credit to CEO Penny Geyser and the all-star cast of:

Father Christmas: Berend

Fairies: Robin and Henk

Choreography: Audrey

Gluwein Welcome Drink: Cheryl

Tuna Pate: Janet

Turkey: cooked by La Cuccina and carved by George

Hams: cooked by Henrie and also by Janet’s sister, Ann

Traditional Stuffing: Ann Dean

Crispy Stuffing and Gravy: Les Appleby

Cheese/broccolli Bake: Janet

Trifle: Penny

Mince Pies: Cheryl

With thanks to Anita, Cheryl and Les for the loan of the hot trays
Collection of Turkeys: Pat & Pat

Special Wines: Jurgen

Service: Verna, Wayne, Thelma, Yaolin, Barnet, and team!!

Dow Racing in Mozambique

A beautiful morning dawned on the Mozambican North coast. It is 10 July and the race time is set to coincide with that of the HBYC winter series at 10h00. Rian (Turner) Peter (Roeloffze) is debating which fleet will be bigger. They concluded that the 10 one - or soon to be two man - Dows they have rounded up must be more than that which will be on the starting line in Hout Bay.



While much debating is taking place regarding the “charter fees” and prize money – which in the end was R 120 per boat – and the skippers briefing, the breeze built to a steady 12 knots which when considering the boats, is more like a hurricane! The crew was divided in two groups and two separated races was decided on. The course, reach to the weather mark, run down to the leeward bouy - which in fact is a huge catamaran, - a sausage back to the weather mark and after the last leeward rounding, reach/fetch back to the beach.


Starting orders was form the rescue boat, an aluminum dinghy aptly named “tinny” and all went well on the reach across to the weather mark and the run down the 500 or so meters to the bottom of the course. Unbeknown to us luxury yachties, these boats have a cunning inability to capsize and lose their sprit in heavy wind. Alas half the boats lost their crew attempting to round the leeward mark and the remainder ended up reaching away from the weather buoy. After several hundred meters further and a few jibe attempts, 4 out of the ten boats started the long way back to the weather mark. The Course was shortened and form the weather mark, the Dows reached back to shore with Rian firmly in the lead. He of course claims the result would still have been the same even if I was sailing and not manning the rescue boat!


The next lot of crew got ready and the second race was wisely altered (and shortened) to include reaches and fetches only. We set sail from the beach to the old weather mark, back to a slightly leeward mark on the beach and after another fetch and reach saw your humble author romping home well ahead of the next boat. Maybe some sailing knowledge of the crew did assist the winning skippers in the two races??


Prize giving was quite a grand affair. Beautiful homemade trophies from driftwood and indigenous shells , personally engraved with the skippers name and race data was handed over by our host and proprietor of Situ Lodge, Hans Wedderman. The biggest attraction of course was the big pot of prize money - 840 Meticas = R 210.00 and is the roughly a weekly salary for these fishermen. Not bad for a Sunday mornings fun.


One wonders how adventurous a sail in the stormy Cape seas would be on one of these boats!

Thanks to Peter Roeloffze and Rian Turner, for article and pics!

Christmas in July!! Sunday 31 July!

Did you see salty old goat with the flag. Look again. He's the guy in the lower half of the picture but you didn't see him did you?

Christmas in July is a great party! Well it was last year! Don't miss it! Sunday 31 July. Lunchtime.

Limited number of places left so please contact Penny Geyser on 0736 111 444 if you have not already bought your tickets!

Fireside Chat! Thursday 4 August 19:30

Jeanne Socrates (from Nereida) will be giving a talk and slide show on her recent 14-month solo circumnavigation, which included a second nonstop RTW attempt. Bring your friends to hear this amazing story. Special Galley menu for this night will include Wilma's homemade chicken or steak pie with chips and (optional!) gravy.

Hope to see you there !

Windy Bay is back . . .

Some of us thought the wind of last summer exhausted the supply forever. Certainly the last two weeks have been totally windfree and awesome. Not this weekend. I took the unusual step of cancelling Sunday racing on the Saturday already - the forecast showed high South-Easters for 3 days. Its hard to trust the weather forecast when low-pressure cells are involved, but in this case there was a huge High Pressure just below Africa at 1028 Mb. No mistakes here. Hout Bay suffers the wind especially because of the acceleration near the mountains. At the Post Office a huge Bluegum (Australian Eucalyptis) had collapsed into the parking area. Covered the entire car park. The beach road was covered in sand - in fact I saw one car being towed out in the middle of the "tarred road". The pics below show the surface water being lifted 50m into the air, due to the Katabatic Winds coming down from Chapmanspeak. Sailors call the mouth of the bay "Thunder Alley" because it is really quite scary entering the bay under sail in these conditions. And today it was cold as well.

Takes 40+ knots to lift water off the surface like that.

White water all over the bay. If you look carefully, the small white streak below Victoria road is the NSRI RIB doing their Sunday morning exercises. It was quite bouncy for them even near the beach. Give that boat a Bells!

Quotes of the Sea

"Cruising has two pleasures. One is to go out to Wider Waters from a Sheltered Place. The other is to go into a Sheltered Place from Wider Waters"
Howard Bloomfield 

The Cape Town Waterfront

The Waterfront was quite amazing this morning! To see it and loads of nice boats, I think you can click here!

left-click for a larger version