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October and November 2004
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Well, the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd October 2004 was very hectic - getting as many of the last tasks completed as I could. I worked into the late evening hours and got most of what I wanted done. Barbara sorted the house out, packing for Mossel Bay, getting BC to the cattery, etc. etc. The morning of the 4th October 2004 dawned and I was very excited. The crane and John Amm's truck arrived earlier than arranged so we started the loading process at 8:15am. There were quite a few people who arrived to see the loading of Zephyr - even one of the local news papers editor arrived to take pictures and write an article.
We anticipated that we would have to remove part of the roof that was half covering Zephyr and on the day we only had about 200mm to spare as we had dug holes in the ground to fit the keel and rudder, so Zephyr had to be lifted out of these holes first and then moved sideways to clear the roof. Once this was done, Zephyr was lifted about 12 meters high and rotated 180° while swinging her to the other side of the crane where the trailer was waiting. Just before being positioned onto the trailer, we quickly painted the bottom of the keel with a mastic paint. Zephyr was then positioned and secured onto the trailer. Once the loading had been done and the mast secured under the boat, John Amm left for Bloemfontein at 12:30pm where he and his wife Gloria over-nighted with friends of theirs. I spent the rest of the day doing the last of the tiding up and packing at the workshop and at home. Joseph and Daniel also started putting the roof back where Zephyr stood. We left for Mossel Bay at 6:30am on Tuesday 5th October 2004 thinking we will catch up to Zephyr around Graaff Reinet - NOT SO. John is no slow coach, we only caught up to them between Willowmore and Uniondale. Zephyr looked really stable on the truck and we followed them the rest of the way into Mossel Bay. It was interesting watching the rig go down the Outeniqua mountain pass - John was overtaking slower vehicles as if he was driving a regular car!
We arrived in Mossel Bay harbor at 5pm where we un-hitched, had a Whiskey that John provided and waited for Schalk and his friend Chris to arrive from Cape Town. We all went to find a place to sleep for the night. John and his wife slept at a pleasure resort in a chalet, Schalk and Chris slept on the yacht club Commodore's yacht "Orpa", and we found a delightful Bed & Breakfast place called Villa Mari where Roelf and his partner Vernon treated us like a Royal's. The next morning we were all at the harbor quay at 8am and started the launch process. We positioned the crane and Zephyr, attached the slings and lifted her off the truck, Schalk quickly put some anti-fouling under the keel and did some touch-up where the slings had rubbed. Then Zephyr was lowered into the water - she was launched at 9:53am on the 6th October 2004, twelve months after I started building her.
We then got the mast ready, attached the cables (called the standing rigging) and hoisted the whole lot onto Zephyr. We followed the tradition of putting a coin under the mast but this gave us more grief than we expected - with the coin under the mast the locating pin would not go in. So we had to take the coin out. I will epoxy this coin onto the mast step - we will just call this a modern alternative.
Once the mast was attached we towed Zephyr to her mooring and started with the rest of the mast cables. In the mean time Barbara was inside Zephyr sorting things out and making Zephyr livable. At this point we noticed the bilge pump working. I went down below and found a leak where the rudder shaft enters the hull. The fiberglass in this area did not go down far enough on the one side. I quickly bought some under water curing epoxy putty and blocked the leak. I will fix this properly once we have sorted the rest out.
I spent the next 10 days getting the inside sorted out, assembling and attaching the roller furler, fitting the sails, etc. etc. We moved out of the B&B and onto Zephyr on the 10th October 2004 - officially becoming live-aboard "yotties". The people from the yacht club have been very good to us - always coming down to see how we are getting on and giving/asking for hints and tips/advice.
We left Zephyr and Mossel Bay on Sunday 17th October 2004 to drive back to Welkom to pack the last of the things in the house, put some of our "stuff" into storage in Johannesburg and collect a few things from storage to take down to Mossel Bay. We arrived in Welkom on Sunday late evening and went straight to bed. We had previously arranged that Daniel and Joseph will come to the house to help with the sorting and packing on Monday morning. I fetched them at 8:30am and we started the sorting and loading. We left Welkom for Johannesburg on Tuesday afternoon, first stopping off at Ann's home to drop some things off there including my queen size bed which my son Craig asked to "borrow". We then went to Barbara's friend, Sandy where we had a lovely dinner and spent the night. The next morning (Wednesday), we went to our storage where Barbara, Craig and I did some re-packing and took some clothes, kitchen stuff and tools out to take to Mossel Bay. We were finished by 2:30pm and went back to Sandy's home for something to eat and have a break.
Barbara had in the mean time arranged for a company to fit a canopy to her bakkie on Thursday morning and Craig had decided to also take a break and come down to Mossel Bay with us. So on Thursday morning Craig and I left Johannesburg for Welkom to start the final packing for Mossel Bay, Barbara went to have the canopy fitted and then went to her Mom's home afterwards where she spent the night. The next morning (Friday) Barbara and her sister Allison left Johannesburg at 5am arriving in Welkom at 7:15am where she went to have her new canopy's windows tinted. Craig and I had spent Thursday night at the Welkom hotel so we were fortunate in that we did not have to get up so early. This was a good thing as we had both been out "jolling" in a nearby town called Virginia with Bernadine (Ross's new receptionist) and her Irish Dad, Mike the previous evenng.
Once again, Daniel and Joseph came to the house and we started the final packing up. Barbara packed the last of the stuff in the house while the four men loaded the two bakkies and trailer. During this time Barbara and Allison also went to collect our cat BC and get the letting agents to come to the house to do an inspection as well as take the water and electricity meter readings. We were finally ready to leave Welkom at 1:15pm, much later than we had originally anticipated. Seeing as we were heavily loaded (the trailer was in fact slightly over-loaded) we could not travel very fast so we decided to overnight at Gariep Dam. We did not go to the main resort but decided to try a place called "The Green Doors" which turned out to be very nice and at half the price of the main resort, well worth it. The next morning (Saturday) we left Gariep at 8:15am and drove the final leg to Mossel Bay, arriving at 5pm.
Craig and I unloaded the bakkie's and trailer, sorted and tidied the 20 foot container we have been given the use of by the club Commodore, Wilhelm von Schutz (whom we thank hugely). We decided to take things a little easy for a couple of weeks. We have done the odd small job on the boat, done some sorting out and a lot of planning.
BC is adapting to boat life quite well and has only fallen into the water once (so far). This event happened at midnight on the 4th November and she was none the worse for wear - just a dented ego and very cold. We have also met a couple of interesting people coming into the harbor. One couple in particular was Nick and Janice Wooller from Australia aboard Yawarra (with their two cats). They have been cruising for 20+ years and we got a lot of advice and hints from them. I was also able to help Janice in return with her computer, so it was a win-win situation. We wish them well on their sail to Brazil and Chile.
Another very interesting person is Helmut Syrowatka aboard "Alena". Helmut is a software engineer and has built his 36 foot yacht from scratch. Building totally alone, it took him 9 years but the end result is really something to see!! Helmut is also responsible for the game called Tetris and he has given a copy to Barbara who loved playing this game in the past, so she is in her element again. Helmut also helped me to get my cell phone to work as a MoDem so we can at least send and receive e-mails again. We can only send and receive text messages but at least we can stay in contact.
I have also heard that Prinsloo Ross (who sold us Zephyr) is going to become a Grandfather in about March 2005. Fancy that, his son Christo and his girl-friend Natasha had a little "accident" and now she is pregnant. According to Prinsloo his 3 children can do nothing wrong and are perfect........ Just goes to show hey Prinsloo - NOBODY is perfect.
We hope that Natasha keeps healthy and that everything goes well for her and the baby.
On the 13th and 14th November 2004 Barbara's friend, Dawn from Durban, paid us a visit. We all went out for a meal at a sea-food restaurant which we enjoyed immensely. It is nice to have friends visit and to do a spot of catching up with what's going on in the world.
Barbara left for Cape Town on Friday 19th November 2004 to attend her Uncle's funeral. Her uncle, Mr Gerald Langton was a "big wig" in Anglo America before he retired. He was CEO of Highveld Steel near Witbank, Highveld Steel being one of the world's largest producers of exotic metals such as C3R2 and other high chrome steels. He was also instrumental in the un-bundling of Anglo America and later became the CEO of Anglo Gold as well as serving on the board of directors at Anglo America as Technical Director. Barbara has also been able to see her four cousins (Gerald's Sons - Christopher, Guy, Peter and Mark) for the first time in years. We wish the family well in this time of their loss.
In the mean time I have been doing some reading (something I have not done for years) and attending to a few odd jobs on Zephyr. I also re-built my computer's new hard drive. The old one started making a "klunking" noise and was failing. So I asked Heila (Schalk's wife) to order me a new one from Cape Town. The computer shops here in Mossel Bay wanted R1,150.00 for a 20GB drive and Heila got me a 40GB drive for R649.00 - that means I paid R16.23 per MegaByte instead of R57.50!!!! A saving of 72% - Thanks Heila. Once again, this episode showed how important computer backups are to make and have.
On Saturday 27th November 2004 we had a surprise visit from Lynette and Guy (Gerald's Wife and Son) who were on their way back from Natures Valley where the Langton's have a holiday home. There was a burglary at the house which they had to sort out with the police and insurance company. While they were there they also had an alarm system installed. Lynette and Guy stopped in briefly, had a cup of tea, chatted for a while and went on their way.
On Sunday 28th November 2004, Natie Myerson, the club President invited us to go sailing in the bay with him and his friend Mike (Mike being the Manager at the local First National Bank). We had a leisurely sail in 5 to 7 knot south easterly winds in a calm sea. The significance was that Natie's boat, "Maverick" is our sister ship and it was good to see how Zephyr will sail and feel one day.
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