Sailing Vessel Beruta Ship's Log
Richards Bay - East London
Saturday 25 November 2023
A distance from Richards Bay to East London is about 340 nm. With 2-3 kt following current, it is reasonable to use a 7 kt average speed for a passage planning. With such
I attended a briefing for ARC people where a local sailor presented his knowledge about rounding South Africa. He insisted on 3 day weather window because the weather here was not too predictable. So this was the case. I had three day weather. Not ideal but in these waters it was hard to find a perfect weather.
In the first day it was supposed to be 10 kt head wind. In the second day - 15 kt following wind. The third day - variable light wind. A night before a short but intense low had passed. By the morning the wind calmed down but the swell remained. It made first few hours very uncomfortable to say the least. When the wind blows in an opposite direction of a current, it creates a mess.
The good thing was that I delayed my departure and left Zululand Yacht Club at 10AM instead of 5AM. It would have been even worse then. There was low tide at 8AM, so I was sailing across a couple of shallow banks at a rising tide. The lowest depth under my 1.4 m keel was 0.8 m.
When I was passing the 25 m depth mark going out of the harbour, there was a noticeable counter current. At 50 m depth mark, there was no current and then the following current started.
In the evening I lost it and ran into an opposite current of up to 1 kt. Intuitively, it seemed to have been closer to the shore but the NullSchool current map showed a weak following current in this area and no counter current. I decided just to sail the course and not to waste my time attempting to find it.
The wind though shifted a bit, and I hoisted the jib and open two reefs on the main. I still had to help with an engine. The wind was not strong enough.
There were many ships anchored along the coast. There was some traffic too.
Sunday 26 November 2023
At night I had to set up an alarm on my iPhone to wake me every 30 minutes because of traffic and many anchored vessels along the shore.
The morning was gloomy: no wind, no Agulhas current but the 0.5 to 1.5 kt counter current, no sleep. It was gloomy literally too. On a bright sight, there was no bad weather. Even if I wouldn't make it on Monday, forecast for Tuesday morning was still ok. The storm would arrive later.
Out of curiosity I decided to check where the current was. I was quite offshore, and depths were around 500 m. So once I passed Durban, I sailed straight to the shore where Aliwal shoal was. The chart said that Agulhas current normally followed 200 m depth contour. I got to 75 m depth, and the current remained the opposite. 2 hours were wasted. Where did it go from Richards Bay?
Such a delicate thing it was! I remembered entering Gulf Stream. There were no surprises there. Just fly with it. Here was a different story.
I'd even written Des an email asking how close to the shore I needed to be for the current. He had a blackout and replied some hours later when I was already in the current. He said that the current started 30 nm south of Durban and at 30° 40' S, 10 nm offshore it should have been around 2 kts.
I was at 30° 43' S, 5 nm offshore and the current was 1.5 kt. I sailed away to almost 100 m depth contour to get a stronger current. It was 1PM and 193 nm to go. I needed 3 kt current to make it in a daytime tomorrow. I got 2.5. There was a light wind (5-8 kts) at 90° on the portside. I raised the jib and the main with one reef. The through water speed increased to 6-6.5, with the engine, of course. With such speed even 2 kt current should have been enough providing everything would stay like this.
I tried to fall asleep afternoon but I couldn't. I was worried of not standing a watch while being close to the shores. I went to the cockpit to look ahead and... there it was! A whale! A giant one! Just 30 meters or so from the bow, right on my course. I changed the course immediately 30° to port, and turned off the depth sounder. Just in case. Who knows why some whales destroy boats. Maybe its ultrasound signal interferes with their own or it just gets them annoyed. I left the engine running, so it could hear me. Of course, it did. As I went down for iPhone to take a picture, it made its magnificent tale splash "bye-bye lucky sailor see you next time". Wow! Besides fishermen and ships, now I also need to watch for the whales here.
Monday 27 November 2023
I seriously tried to sleep because the second sleepless night was no good at all for the well-being. I woke up every half an hour or so to check around. It was much calmer than the previous night in terms of the ship traffic. I only met one ship sailing inshore in the opposite direction. There were no ship anchorages or fishermen, and no more whales. It was full moon but cloudy, still good visibility.
At the sunrise, Africa was submerged in a fog. It was cool at night. So the air got condensed over the ground and moved to the sea with a night breeze, perhaps.
I had not stopped the engine for the entire voyage. There was very little wind and I needed to maintain the speed to get to East London in time for the coming tide, before dark and certainly before the storm that would develop on Tuesday. I would have used the entire tank of diesel when I arrived.
After breakfast, I emptied four cans of fuel into the tank. I would do two more in Buffalo River Yacht Club. I also unhanked and packed the jib. For the rest of the trip it would be head wind 15 kts T. I left the main with 3 reefs to stability.
At 11AM the head wind picked up. The remaining 4 hours I motored at almost full RPMs against 21-26 kt wind. The current was still following but around 1 kt.
I sent a Whatsup message to Peter, the owner of the Buffalo River Yacht club confirming my arrival between 3 and 4PM. He replied that they watched me on MarineTraffic and would meet me on the pier. He said to put fenders and mooring lines on the portside. Before entering the river mouth, I also called the port control on the VHF channel 12 asking for a permission.
Docking was easy with 3 people helping and greeting me. They said the showers on the left and the beer on the right. I joked that it was all I needed.
Later I found that the marina was actually comparatively expensive, double the price of Richards Bay, 300 R per day regardless of a boat size! In terms of amenities, it was very basic though. Electricity and water was available at the pontoon, and a toilet with a shower was nearby on the shore. There was no restaurant, just a bar.
In the marina I met Dario, an interesting Italian-Australian single-handed sailor on a little ketch Black Swan moored next to mine. We had lengthy conversations during next couple of days.
All pictures from South Africa are in Google Photos, a video is on YouTube.