Members Page

This page is for the express use of all PYC members. Whether you are cruising the world and would like to keep your friends and other members informed of your progress and adventures or you are still enjoying life in Durban and the PYC but would like to express an opinon or even share your latest yachting experience with others.

What ever you would like this page to be, it is, just let me know!!

News from Michael Pammenter

Hey all

So last time i spoke to you lot it was a couple of weeks back. I said something along the lines of joining Ericsson. I ended up joining them a couple a days after i wrote the mail. As per boating life, the plains changed, the Ericsson bosses are not going to be in Asia and China so we never headed off that way. What we did however do was head off to Istanbul in Turkey.

The trip to Istanbul is about 1300nm which if you want it in Kilometers is about 1.6 times that. In theory the boat could do that distance in about 3-4 days easy. Well it took us over a week to do the trip! There was very little wind the entire trip. What wind we did get was coming from in front of us. For the non sailors that is slow and uncomfortable progress!! We did get some wind the one night, it blew about 30knots which is a fair breeze, but once again it was the slow and uncomfortable direction!! And when i say uncomfortable i mean really uncomfortable. The boat is a racing machine so there are no luxuries at all onboard. And boy it is noisy!! The boat is made of carbon fibre which is as stiff as hell!! So it sends the noise through the entire boats. The other thing about the boat is the hull shape, its very flat, sounds great when you are surfing along with the wind behind you! But when the wind is blowing from the uncomfortable direction the flat bottom hull is simple a big drum that the waves beat on all day and night long! So the routine onboard was simple. 7 Guys, which ment two watches of 3 each and the navigator who was off watch but always around. So you sail for 4 hours and you get 4 hours off. Which if you work it out is quite a lot of sleep. Not really. It takes you more that 30mins after your watch has finished to get to sleep and you get woken up 15mins before your watch starts. So that leaves you with just over 3 hours every 8. Still not to bad. 9 hours a day, but there are still the times when we have to do maneuvers so you are called up during your 'off' time. O and as well as that the boat is so noise you can never really get into a deep sleep. You are awake most of the time just resting your eyes. By the end of 7 days you are well into the routine of a lack of sleep!

Well enough about sailing. That stuff is boring, lets chat about Istanbul. For anyone who has been there i am sure you found it a blast. It has got to be one of the best places i have been to. I would go back there in a heart beat!! The city itself is huge, there are 12-15 million people living in Istanbul. There is always something going on. We arrived there late on Saturday night. Somewhere around midnight! Dropped our stuff off at the hotel and it was straight out into the city. We got word that Taksim was a great place to go. So we jumped in a cab and off we went. The taxi drivers dropped us off outside a place called Tiffany's. So in we go! It took us all of 2 mins to work out what kind of establishment it was. Old fat men talking to young attractive girls! Live soft music! It all looked very strange. Well we never minded, until the host brought two girls to our table and informs us that these will be our Lady's for the evening! Thats when we decided to get the hell out of doge. At that stage our drinks tally stood at two drinks each, peanuts, fruit and our girls had been sitting at the end of the table for 15mins. The bill came to 1100 Turkish Liara. Which if you are unfamiliar with the exchange rate is around 500 Euros!! No jokes! They were charging us 50 Euros a drink, for the 'complementary' peanuts on the table, The fruit that nobody asked for and we got charged for the girls time!! Can you handle it! We settled it very simply. We emptyed all our pockets, and got the hell out of there with them chasing us! First impressions of Turkey were not to good! Every other night out here has been really good, just stay away from 'night clubs' with Russian girls. Turkey itself has so much more to offer besides the young Russian women. I am not going to go into too much detail, you will just have to see it for yourself!! One other thing about Istanbul was that it was snowing while we were there!! for the first time in my life i was walking around in snow!! I was even taking photos with my camera!! The rest of the crew thought i was crazy!!

So at the moment i am back in La Ciotat, we stayed in Istanbul for 10 days or so. Unfortunately the trip back was much of the same. Little to no wind and from the horrible direction! Except the one day we have really good strong wind from behind us. So you would think that the crew could at least get some sleep. Not a chance, the boat is still really noisy but a lot more fun to sail!

So my plans from here are simple, home for Christmas!! Looking forward to that!! It will be got to have a rest from boating!!

Trust all is well with the lot of you!!

Sir Mike

LONDON BOAT SHOW & CLIPPER RACE NEWS 2005

By Aubrey Brooks

In the middle of last month I was fortunate enough to get over to the London Boat Show, which was held at ExCel, which is right next to Customs House in London. For those who have been to the London Boat Show before, you will know what a great experience this is but for me a first time visitor it was almost unbelievable. The sheer size of the show, the amount of visitors and the quality of all the stands and products were just unbelievable.

Whilst I was there I bumped into a large number of South Africans of various walks of life and also managed to squeeze in a lunch with Eddy and Heather Broadbent, who are both well and enjoying themselves.

The main reason for me being at the London Boat Show was for the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race 05/06, which is coming to fair City in November this year.

The Boat Show ran from the 6th to the 16th January 2005 and Clipper was able to display to the public for the first time their new Dubois 68 yacht (Liverpool 08) as part of an Exhibition Feature that was run in partnership with the British Marine Federation illustrating the history of Round the World Yacht Racing.

At the other end of the yachting scale from Liverpool 08 was Sir Robin's famous boat Suhaili which he had sailed up to the show to join the late Sir Alex Rose's yacht, Lively Lady. Both these small craft had helped pioneer single-handed Round the World Sailing.

Sir Robin was one of nine who set out on the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race and was the eventual winner having taken 312 days for his voyage. It was an especially significant, if not somewhat humbling experience, having the original Golden Globe as the centrepiece of the exhibition.

On Thursday 12 Jan we were honoured by a visit from Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal. She was met by Sir Robin and by Sir Bob Scott, Chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company. During her tour of the yacht she also met Race Director Tim Hedges and representatives from China, Jersey and Perry Moodley from Durban Africa represented South Africa.

On the 13th January, at noon the giant spans of Tower Bridge slowly opened to pay respect to Glasgow Clipper as she passed through in bright sunlight with James Semple playing the pipes on the forecastle. The crew consisted of some Scottish crew members already signed up, assisted by Nicola Jolly who is the current Miss UK as well as Miss Scotland. Nicola's application form is in the mail.

Later that evening Glasgow Clipper was named in front of the Tower of London in the traditional manner when Councilor Alex Mosson broke a bottle of Champagne over her bow. The large crowd toasted the fine yacht before retiring to the magnificent setting of Trinity House, the other side of the Tower!

The very special moment for me was that the Glasgow Clipper was skippered by our very own Craig Muller who I managed to spend some time with during this rather special occasion between sips of champagne. Craig is looking very well and really enjoying the challenge that lies ahead. I believe they are down to the last 20 skippers and I really hope that he will be amongst the successful few. He sends his regards to all and appears to be having a really great but tough time. (He did say to me it was quite a steep learning curve.)

I was particularly amazed that evening to see the tidal current flowing down the Thames River and we can all be proud of Craig and his crew of how they handled the yacht for this very special occasion.

That same evening I was fortunate enough to be a guest at a dinner hosted by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, which was a black tie affair attended by approximately 90 dignitaries.

Trinity House is the authority that is responsible for all lighthouses and navigational marks around England and Wales. Sir Bob Scott, who was responsible for Manchester's winning bid for the Commonwealth Games, and more recently Liverpool's bid for the European Capital of Culture in 2008, was the guest of Honour. The City of Glasgow generously provided gifts at each place setting and Councilor Alex Mosson was presented with a scale model of Glasgow Clipper.

I was fortunate enough to have Nicola Jolly seated next to me for the evening and she is coming out to South Africa in April and will most certainly be popping into the yacht clubs for the odd quiet pint.

On Saturday the 15th January, I was given the opportunity to address some 200 of the new “Round the World” crew and tell them about the wonderful experience they can look forward to on their visit to our City.

It was a great experience and everybody from the UK side send their kind wishes to all of us down here in South Africa.

The Delivery by Trevor Donald

I hope that this email finds you in good spirits, thought I would tell you about a delivery which we have just completed!

After the regular delivery skippers declined the delivery of ORION EXPRESS { cal 40 } because of the lack of home comforts and the technical rig and set-up, I was approached to do the job.

The boat had stood for a year, and took two weeks of afternoon's to get her ready, the starter motor and alternator had been submerged, so had to be reconditioned as the bilges hadn't been pumped for ages. Bruce and I spent three hours with SCUBA cleaning the hull and foils until she was back in racing trim.

After she was ready to put to sea I approached Joe Boy, Jeremy Thorpe and Paddy Blaunt to join Bruce Coleman and I for the trip to Cape Town. We decided to have a shake down on the Wednesday evening to find our way around the controls, and to familiarise ourselves with the boat, before setting sail on the Thursday evening in a freshening NE with a poled out No 3 and one reef in the main, and promptly saw a whale off the bluff as the sun set!

The boat came alive as we settled down for the night at a constant 10 + knots, the intention was to have a one hour overlap in the watches' with two on deck at all times, which would have been two hours on and three off, which would have not been to taxing, but unfortunately Paddy succumbed to seasickness and was man down in his bunk { pipe cot } which are great for sleeping in.

We were off East London in 22 hours a record for the 246 nautical miles, but were sixty miles offshore so gybed, and decided to sail for Port Elizabeth to drop Paddy off who was still taking strain, with the new sailing angle we started to rocket down the waves as the boat revelled in the conditions. Just my luck, as we were approaching PE the wind dropped then switched to a freshening SW, from our position we managed to beat in on port tack into ALGOA BAY and after saying cheers to Paddy, who caught a flight to DURBAN, we settled in at the yacht club, and watched the semi-finals of the Currie Cup rugby, feeling rejuvenated after hot showers and a great meal. The Sunday morning dawned cold and still blowing from the SW, so watched Ernie win the golf, the tidied the boat, as we had a favourable forecast for Monday.

We set sail at 5.30 am - fetched to Cape Receif in a dying SW which switched to NE at 8am and freshened during the day with fantastic sailing until the evening when the wind suddenly increased to over 35 knots, Joe was having his supper, I was on the helm , Bruce and Jeremy were below deck, the boat took off at 20 +, knots, down one wave and straight into the next one, and dug her nose in up to the mast, and came to a queasy stall before lying on her side, like a lame duck, sails flogging and boom in he water, all hell had broken, after some time and lots of shouting we managed to ease the pole forward, she righted herself and promptly took off again , we were now all on deck and managed to drop the headsail, but could not budge the main which only had one reef rigged on the boom, by now the wind was up to 40 gusting 50!!!!!!! our eyes were out on stalks as she rocketed off at a constant 20 plus into the pitch black of the new moon, the concentration required to sail at this speed in such a narrow compass angle of between 255 and 270 any less and she was on her side any more and she would gybe, Joe and I took two hour shifts as the sleigh ride continued throughout the night , unfortunately because of the light strong construction, the noise below deck was horrendous, and amplified , which made the conditions appear as if they were getting worse, the way we were tossed around in our pipecots was like being on a rollercoaster but only worse. The noise resembled a freight train passing one metre from your head, the saving grace was that you could not have been with better guys, there was no sign of fear in this serious situation and a life long bond was created, there has never been such relief at the first sign of dawn, the storm took us way offshore, we gybed in moderating wind and rounded CAPE AUGULUS the most southern tip of AFRICA in a dying breeze, and were soon motor sailing, whilst catching up with sleep

Tuesday evening we decided that because of the calm conditions we would only need one on deck , one hour at a time, with three hours of much needed rest in-between, this worked fine until I was about to go off watch at midnight with Bruce, just settling in when the wind switched to SW and freshened, we hoisted the headsail and beat into FALSE BAY, dodging the large fleet of chukker boats which occasionally shone there search lights on us as we passed, the most incredible thing I have ever seen was the glowing phosphoresces as the waves crested, and the boat cut a swathe of silver across the sea which was only enhanced by the tracer like swathes as a school of dolphin surfed alongside us, the sight was one to behold.

We rounded CAPE POINT at dawn in a typical Cape morning with a light drizzle and sailed into CAPE TOWN with Bruce on the helm at lunch time having taken 100hrs of sailing time at an incredible average of 10.1 knots.We tidied the boat and handed her over - having had an incredible adventure together!!!

GRENADA - HURRICANE IVAN

Tuesday

7th September

I was terrified as our boat smashed against the dock, and the wind tried to blow us away like the leaves on the mangrove trees we’d been tied to. We’d sailed south from St Maarten to Grenada, which is supposed to be below the hurricane belt, to avoid what was expected to be an active hurricane season, and here I was being knocked horizontal, with brown water over the binimi windows.

We’d attached four lines aft to mangroves and tied forward to two moorings and two anchors, but when the 60 ft catamaran next to us broke loose and smacked into us; ‘Islomania’ was knocked flat. The sheared lines fowled the propeller but somehow, miraculously we made it to the dock.

While hanging onto the stanchions for dear life, hindsight warns we shouldn’t have been aboard, but the forecast didn’t predict the sustained winds of 135 knots we experienced. Two days earlier it was anticipated the hurricane would swing northwest but when Ivan didn’t behave as expected, Jerry Blakeslee, the skipper, knew to move the boat into the mangroves, and remove all sails, the canopy, and strip the decks having assisted sailors during eight hurricanes in five years in St Maarten.

“What was it like,” my very worried teenagers asked when I finally managed to make a phone call to South Africa a few days later. “Is it just really windy?” How could I explain to them the force of the wind, how all the leaves blew of the trees, that I couldn’t stand upright on the dock, that the sea was white, with 45 ft waves inside the reef protected bay of Secret Harbour. During the short eye of the storm we managed to get some lines to the few surviving cleats on the dock and I hid with five guys in the marina ablution block shower cell for hours

while the roof blew off and walls and trees crashed around us.

The destruction was so devastating people just stood around numbly in shock shaking their heads. Out of the two hundred boats at Spice Island Marina boatyard, where we were due to haul out, only a few were left standing. 90 percent of roofs blew off and 60 percent of the island are homeless.

Two weeks after the hurricane things are slowly getting back to normal. Each day gets a little better. Initially security was a serious issue with widespread looting and we stood nightly watches with flare guns and mace sprays to secure the marina area. Complete anarchy broke out when 600 people attacked a food store and boats washed up on the shore and reefs were stripped, so the 12 hour curfew was extended to 24 hours in the towns. The priorities were to get the airport operational so aid could be flown in, get communication systems working, and clear the roads of fallen trees and power lines, so assistance could be given to those in more remote areas. All those able to leave left, as soon as they were able, so not to drain scarce resources.

People have been wonderful and boats sailed up from Trinidad with water, diesel and essential food. Private individuals organized donations to the hospital and the entire marina turned out to off-load from boats onto trucks. Though Alistair on the boat next to us, had a bad kidney stone scare, we were pleased to celebrate his 60th birthday, though a day late, in good Scottish style with kilts and Scotch whisky, and those with enough to share brought food.

We’ve finally managed to fiberglass and epoxy the holes in the bow and dinghy and are waiting for new engine mounts and other engine spares to fix the bent prop shaft. Fresh water is still a problem, but boats anchored in the lagoon are running water makers and we fill up using jugs. The banks and food stores are open a few hours a day, so life is slowing returning to a semblance of normality. The countryside is loud with the noise of hammering and generators and compression tanks as relief boats float the sunken vessels at the dock and the country start to rebuild.

The destruction is still shocking but Grenadians are positive and hardworking with a great national pride. Kelvin, from the boatyard told me, though Grenada was blown away, in time they would rebuild the country better and stronger.