Shakedown Sail - Was it Ever!

When Table Mountain has a table cloth rolling over the side - WATCH OUT

It should be no surprise to anyone that knows me, that weather conditions are ALWAYS a factor on any sail that I take.  This was definitely the case during our shakedown sail on October 14th.  Before I go into the details, I want to state the objectives of a good shakedown sail:  “To subject the boat to similar conditions that could be encountered during the life of the vessel to ensure that all systems function as expected, the sails and rigging are tested and the boat holds together and performs as expected. “

Shakedown sails are usually best if performed over period of time – days or weeks.  We did not have the luxury of time, given my crew constraints, so we (Jens, Josh and Meg) decided to go out on a day with expected challenging weather conditions.  The table cloth overhanging Table Mountain seen in the picture was a sure sign of high winds.  But as most of you know, this has not stopped me before, so we departed the dock with a plan to round the Cape of Good Hope (35nm S of Cape Town), then sail downwind to Langebaan (50nm N of Cape Town).  This would have been a long day for sure, but we expected a very fast downwind run to Langebaan with 20kts AWS. 

So – we took off early and made it about halfway to Cape of Good Hope before having to turn around.  I did not want to subject Meg – on her first sail – to 3-4m seas beating upwind against 25kt winds.  At least that’s what I thought.  We then enjoyed a brisk sail back to Cape Town until the wind died around Robben Island.  So-we adjusted our plan again and decided to put up the Assymetric spinnaker and test our downwind sails. The wind picked back up to 25kts, so we struck our assym and headed back to V&A marina.  We were only 10nm away from the V&A Marina – What could go wrong??

As we headed south, the wind built quickly from 25 to 35kts, then to 45kts.  We tested our upwind sails and were down to the 3rd reef and partially furled jib. We were still making headway to the safety of the breakwater, albeit slowly and t took us well over 2 hours to sail the short distance. As we got within a mile of the breakwater, we struck all sails and turned on both engines. 

Then disaster struck - we lost our port engine and our starboard engine seemed to be really struggling to give us more than 2kts forward speed into the 45kt headwinds.  Long story - very short – we decided to anchor outside the breakwater, while we tried to fix our engine.  Anchoring not once, but twice in 40kt winds is fun!!  We finally determined our engine problem was caused by the fuel filter and were able to fix it and finally motored back to the safety of our dock.

Needless to say, this test sail was short – but very effective!  We put Rodeless through the ringer on her first full day at sea and she held up well.  We only found a few things that needed attention before we sailed away.