Misto - January 1-13 2019: Farewell Cape Town

The new year was a blur of activity as we prepared to depart Cape Town on January 9. Our crew, David, arrived from North Carolina in the USA and settled down on board. We had some late alterations made to our new Genoa, that was a little long, and our new sailbag, that was a little small, and a great WARC cocktail party rounded out our stay.

We departed with the fleet on January 9 in light winds that became brisker as we headed out and around Robben Island. We were flying our gennaker when suddenly there were two loud bangs and our bowsprit broke off the cross beam. With quite some effort we partially furled the sail, lowered it and could then see that there was a significant piece of aluminum that had torn off. Reluctantly, as we were not sure if here was any structural damage, we turned back for Cape Town.

This time at the request of Associated Rigging, we went to the Royal Cape Yacht Club, where they expertly repaired the damage in a day. However, now the weather was against a departure and so we had to spend another few days enjoying Cape Town and Stellenbosch. So now we are ready to depart again and looking forward to rejoining the fleet.