Overview

It was the middle of my final year at school and I decided that I would take a year (or more? We’ll see!) out. I had sailed before. A couple of family holidays in the Mediterranean led to the purchase of a family yacht, Argonaut, a 47 foot Van de Stadt Samoa in 2004. I sailed Argonaut on a regular basis from March ’04 onwards and at the beginning of ’06 we, the crew of Argonaut, entered the Cape to Salvador Race (the replacement of Cape to Rio). Much enjoyment and experience was gained through the Atlantic crossing. It was obvious that my Year out would be dominated by sailing and where better to go and work on yachts than the Caribbean¿

I had known of the Governor’s Cup, a race from Cape Town to the remotest Island in the world St. Helena. How? Well friends of my family had bought a boat at the same time as us and had entered the Governor’s Cup. They went on from the Island to the Caribbean and beyond.

This idea worked for me and so I decided in July ’06 to go on the Governor’s Cup Race and then sail on to the Caribbean. I put my name up on the Crew list on the Race notice board and shortly thereafter got a phone call from Tom Brown, he was looking for crew. And so I set off on the long trip (an hour) to Simon’s Town to meet and sail with Tom. He liked me and thought I could sail and so I got a position as crew and navigator on his yacht, this meant that the next three months was spent intensely training and preparing for the 10 day race.

At this point I should mention Tom’s boat, especially since he was very involved in the designing of the boat. The boat, Raging Bull, is the prototype of the Miura II. It is in my (and others’) opinion a radical redesign of the Miura. The boat has huge potential and can go extremely fast (15 knots) for its size, not only is the boat a new design but the main Spinnaker, a parasailor, is a relatively new and radical design. The parasailor is a sail with a big hole in the middle and a kite.

Meanwhile I got a call from Stuart Goodwin, the owner of Allegro, a Vicker’s 41’, a cruiser in the Race, his plan was to carry on to Trinidad from St. Helena. He had completed the boat himself, so I was sailing on two boats, built by their owners!

And so on the 28th of December 2006 I set sail on the start of my trip of a lifetime.

Check out the Governors Cup website at www.thegovernorscup.co.za in the top right is a button which says maps. Click on it to see our course, also check out the gallery.