Welcome to Lieve’s Blog!

This is the blog of Lieve Berghmans, crew member aboard the Maggie B. Lieve joined the crew in Salvador, Brazil and will crew on the journey to Cape Town, South Africa.

Welcome to Bart’s Blog!

This is the blog of Bart Gabriel, crew member on the Maggie B, traveling from Salvador Brazil to Cape Town South Africa.

Saying Goodbye to Brazil | Sunday, 07.30.2006

Now in full prep mode.

Everybody had prepared for a big complicated trip and checked and double checked their packing and supplies. A big crossing is just like that — but more complicated.

In talking about the Iraq war, Don Rumsfeld said something about the “Known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns.” We are just there. We know to check all the rig for wear and loose pieces, we know to change the oil and filters, we know to prep the emergency bilge pump, we know to practice rigging the storm sails, we know to load food for 30 days plus everybody’s “comfort’ food (chocolate!), we know to watch the scary lows rolling off the Pampas into the Southern Ocean, we know to calibrate backup GPS’s (12 foot difference!), but how do you prepare for the surprises? Sharpen your knives, get extra sleep and listen to lots of advice.

One fun sign that we should start saying goodbye to Brazil (we arrived in Natal almost five weeks ago!), and think about Africa was meeting a neat couple, Allan and Anya, who had come in from South Africa on their boat. They traded us a South African courtesy flag for a case of beer. Now we are ready!

We are going to have an very interesting series of challenges to pick the right course.

Anyone who wants to follow our passage can get the same weather we are looking at by going to www.globalmarinenet.net and getting a GRIB viewer and then following their instructions to download a GRIB file of our position. SSAtlantic gives the whole South Atlantic or you can focus in on the weather around a specific position. It gives present weather as well as forecasts. I will also post the information that we get from Commanders Weather as to strategic and tactical weather advice. The challenge is that there is a perfect spot with great winds to move us marvelously to Cape Town, but too far south and you get hammered and too far north there is no wind. East to say, but the systems are moving shockingly fast, so you have to position yourself waaaay before the systems arrive. We go 150 to 200 miles a day. The systems move at least twice as fast.

Experienced Sailors, All

The moon is getting fuller every night which should make night watches much nicer. We have a very strong crew, all four of us are experienced Blue Water Sailors, all Shellbacks. With four, we can each do only three hour watches during the night. Positive luxury, though I expect that there will be some nights when we all will be up. Looking at the Pilot Charts (downloadable from th Internet from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency; Pilot Chart of the South Atlantic Ocean; August), we will be running along the line that is the northern limit in August (record from 1772!) of Glacier Ice, plus the line that has a historic record of having waves over 12 feet 30 percent of the time. The Maggie B can do 10.5 knots at hull speed. We’ll see what she can do surfing!

From Salvador, All is well.