New crew, new J-Prop, and a new destination | Sunday, 07.23.2006

A lot going on with the Maggie B

The Schooner Maggie B hasn’t moved much in the last two weeks, but lots has been going on. Certainly lots of exploring all the parts of Salvador. We have been hauled out and back in again, and have a new J-Prop to replace the one that went to swim with the fishes somewhere between Barbados and Natal.

We’ve cleaned off all marine growth so we are again in a “go fast” mode.

Work on the boat has included plugging the usual minor leaks, checking and replacing some rigging pieces (see photos of feeble Lewmar block and the new Antal in the previous post), finally getting fresh secondary fuel filters for both the engine and the generator, off loading our failed cloths washer (we are trying to find a traditional wash board), getting more minutes for the Iridium Sat phone, etc., etc. Brazil is marvelous, but everything takes more time and inevitably has complications.

One big step now is getting Reepicheep fixed up. Reep is our tender and was marvelously made by two apprentices at the Rockland, Maine ApprenticeShop (www.atlanticchallenge.com) from a Mystic Seaport “Moosabec Reach Wherry” design of the Whitehall class. She has been admired from Nova Scotia to Brazil. The varnish needed redoing and the hull paint has had a few too many insults. I also mixed up the jib lead one night when Reep was on deck, and the jib sheet seriously wore into the hull in two places. So she is out for a Salvador makeover, and was due back yesterday so that we could go exploring the huge Baie de Todos Santos. But now it is “maybe tomorrow.” Sigh.

But the exciting news is that we are now crewed up for the trip to South Africa with excellent hands!

A week ago, when we were in the Bahia Marina waiting to be hauled, we saw a nice little sloop arrive with a obviously fatigued crew of two. She was the Plume d’Ange, a Belgium boat, just in from the Azores with a couple, Bart and Livet, sailing her. We got talking and have stayed connected as we both moved over to the Centro Nautico. Bart and Livet are in their late 20’s and are both maritime professionals, now off on a sailing holiday/leave. She runs the huge dredges that replaced the beach at Acapulco after the hurricane, or the levees in New Orleans. He is the mechanic for the supertugs that can hold a drilling station on position in a hurricane within a few centimeters.

They became interested and then excited about the Maggie B and the trip to Cape Town. After a few dinners together on the Maggie B and the Plume d’Ange, we four felt that we had confidence in each other’s plans, priorities and skills. The Plume d’Ange is going to stay in Salvador in a safe yacht club up the coast, get hauled and get new antifouling, and their genoa, which blew out on the way down, will be all remade by a local sail loft.

The route to South Africa from Salvador is an interesting one.

Hopefully not too interesting. If you go straight, the SE’erly trades are in your face the whole way, so the trick is to head south to pick up Westerlies. But not too far south, because this is winter here and the Roaring Forties is not just an expression. Also, as we go south, we will need to stay clear of the area around the Montevideo and Buenos Aries due to the winds they call the Pamperos, which has wrecked many a ship.

The logical route, south but not too much so, should take us past the island of Tristan da Cunha, where we should be able to resupply….potatoes. So, from Salvador, we will head south to SSE, depending on the winds, until we reach the westerlies, which should be about 25 or 30 degrees south. It is about 2000 miles to Tristan de Cunha on a heading of about 160 degrees, and then 1500 miles from T da C to Cape Town on a heading of 105 degrees.

In the Southern Ocean gales move around the world unrestricted. Prudent sailors “ride” the pressure gradients. If the glass is falling, go north, if it is rising, ease south. Lows, of course, rotate in the opposite direction from up north, but that is probably the only sure truth of the weather.

All is well.