Meanwhile, everyone else was oblivious to my thoughts, and I quickly forgot them myself. We were afloat, and the launch, in spite of the delays, had been a success.
Lynda’s mother did the honours with the champagne. She uncorked it and showered us on the foredeck several metres below her (it was low tide), with the words ‘I name this ship Tin Hau. God bless her and all who sail in her.’ The tv camera recorded the magic moment – this was probably the first three-masted steel junk to be launched on the African continent – and scores of other cameras clicked. Hand shakes and relief all round. The first stage of our dream had been achieved.
We were not given long to rest. The third and smallest crane remained behind to drop the three masts into position. Andy joined Tony and myself on the boat, whilst Munchie took up his position – prominent as usual – astride the cross-trees of each mast as they dangled in the air. The crane operator could not see the deck of the boat, so Munchie fulfilled the role of go-between. The main and mizzen masts dropped into place easily enough. The foremast took slightly longer, as it had to be guided between the cheeks of the tabernacle, raked at the correct angle, and then drilled to receive the two securing bolts. In accordance with tradition (to bring good luck), coins were placed under each of the masts – a British fifty pence coin under the main mast, a Swazi fifty cents under the mizzen mast, and a South African fifty cents coin under the foremast. We finished just before darkness fell, and were more than ready to relax and celebrate. A crate of good South African beer was waiting.
There was still no peace for the wicked. We received an urgent request from the harbour officials that we move immediately. The quay was needed. I replied that we had not yet tested our engine, steering, anchors and a hundred other items. Could we wait at least until the morning? Or could we manhandle Tin Hau along to the end of the quay using warps? The answer was a firm no. Regulations. When I asked where we were to move to, I was told that it was to the original spot where the launch was meant to have taken place. ‘Don’t worry,’ they said, ‘we will call a tug.’
One was, in fact, already hovering, so I relented. We would move. The tug came alongside. Mooring lines were passed across, and off we went across the harbour on our first outing. We were cast off near to our designated berth and thankfully tied up without any problems. This time we really did feel drained. Kind friends drove our cars round for us, and thoughtful ones arrived with flasks of soup and sandwiches for the weary crew. We felt shattered and bruised, but at the same time contented and excited about the future. My last thoughts before dropping off to sleep were of mooring lines and fenders carving themselves against the quay wall with the rising and falling tide. Nautical thoughts – at long last. The days of sleeping on land were over.
13. Afloat at Last
We woke up on Tuesday, 11th March, to the sounds of seagulls, harbour cranes and the gentle lapping of water against the hull. Other sounds were less readily identifiable, such as the mysterious cracking and hissing of creatures on the seabed ten feet below. In time everything would become familiar, and anything unexpected – such as a sharp change in the wind strength and direction, or the arrival of a new boat – would result in instant wakefulness. For the moment, we still thought in terms of sleeping at night, being awake during the day, and treating weekends as different.
All this was to change as we grew into our new roles as ‘boat people’. In fact it reached a stage where we coined a phrase ‘land people’ to describe those people we observed from Tin Hau – who obviously lived on land, probably in a town or city, and whom we assumed were not in touch with so many of the things which became of overriding importance to us – such as the phase of the moon, the direction and strength of the wind, and the type of cloud cover. They would have no understanding of the relief we felt when dawn came at sea after a cold, black night. Nor would they understand our endless efforts to conserve water and our concern about the disposal of waste. A true land person is more preoccupied with his or her motor car, telephone or video player, and is concerned about insurance, pensions, social security, holidays and personal safety. An extreme land person loves photographing boats but will not set foot in one, loves the seaside but will only look at the sea from the shelter of a car, and shows no appreciation of some of the wonders of the modern world, such as drinking water that comes out of taps, electricity brought right to the home, and the humble water closet. It is amazing how often the subject of toilets (‘heads’ at sea) comes up between two boat people meeting each other for the first time.
Returning to the smaller world of Tin Hau’s saloon on 11th March, Lynda and I were enjoying our first breakfast afloat as we contemplated the long list of ‘jobs to do’. We were galvanised into action when we heard the familiar sound of a Volkswagen Beetle engine on the quay wall above. Tony had arrived. This meant work and no more hanging around talking about it.
The first job was to crawl into the bilges and wedge into place the mizzen and main masts, securing them where they passed through the deck. The foremast would need some further attention.
‘Coffee, Tony?’ I asked hopefully.
‘No, don’t be so idle,’ came the reply. ‘There’s an engine waiting.’
I went down below to open sea-cocks and check stowage. There were no apparent problems. We were in a position to turn the key in the pilothouse. This we did, and the engine roared into life, enjoying its first taste of huge quantities of genuine sea water. We engaged gear, forwards and in reverse. All seemed in order as we strained against our mooring lines.
Over the next few days, we commissioned the three heads (they worked), our waste water bag in the bilges, the deck wash hose, the radar, the VHF, the freezer, the navigation lights and the wind generator. The latter proved to live up to the manufacturer’s claims by generating four amps of current in twenty knots of wind, and cutting out at eight to ten amps during our first quayside gale. The only electronic instrument that totally failed right from the beginning was the Seafarer 700 echo sounder. Once again, we were lucky to receive some generous free assistance from a local electronics genius, Dave Johnson, who actually worked out and drew the circuit diagram before we received it from Seafarer in England. Despite his best efforts, he did not succeed in fixing the instrument until his third attempt four weeks later, by which time we had bought a replacement which was posted from England. From 1986, therefore, Tin Hau had two echo sounders, one in commission and in working order and the other in its box as a spare – not a bad precaution given the importance of this device.
On Friday, 14th March, Hugh and Chantal arrived from East London and became our first overnight guests on board. They proved to be much more than guests, as they beavered with us for four days on various painting and rigging jobs. Our eight mast stays had all been measured in position, taken to Haggie Wire Ropes for end swaging and returned the same day. They were ready for fixing in place along with the dead-eyes and lanyards. Before this could be done, we had to make our first trip under our own power around the harbour, as the harbour survey team required our space to be vacated for a few hours so they could take some soundings. Using springs, we managed to get away from the quay wall. The re-berthing also went without mishap, my first somewhat nerve-racking experience of handling what was more like a small ship than a yacht. I knew I had much to learn.
The next day we brought all three sails over from the hangar to the quay wall and started the job of lashing the bamboo battens and the laminated timber yards into place. Our hangar space was looking more and more empty and I spent some time clearing it out completely.
By now the quay wall sported a steady crowd of onlookers and well-wishers. Rumour had it that special coach trips were being run from town to see the strange junk! We carried on regardless, trying hard always to be polite and receptive to the comments and questions – the most common one being, ‘When are you leaving?’
Perhaps the moment has arrived to introduce someone briefly referred to earlier, but not mentioned at any great
length– Jacqui Wilmot. She was to play an important part in Tin Hau’s early days, and came into our lives in a most unusual way. Back in December 1984, when the first article on Tin Hau had been written in the Eastern Province Herald, Jacqui (then a schoolgirl aged 16) had been living with her parents, brother and sister, in Mill Park; at that time we were house-sitting for Lynda’s parents in the area. Jacqui’s grandparents, Bob and Sheila Palmer, were visiting their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren for Christmas, and Sheila, on idling through the local paper, came across the Tin Hau article and our name, Chidell. Since Chidell had been her maiden name, and as there are not many Chidells around, she decided to track us down. Sure enough, we were quite closely related, although until the Herald article we had not even known of each other’s existence. It turned out that Jacqui’s mother, Wendy, and I had shared the same great-grandfather.
Right from the outset, Jacqui set her mind on joining us on Tin Hau wherever we might be going; and, despite opposition – mainly on account of her age – from her grandparents, parents and ourselves, she achieved all she set out to do. To see such determination, enthusiasm and courage from someone so young was really uplifting for us all, and many a time we were helped by Jax. The first proof of her dedication came in all the work she did with us while still on shore; and on Tuesday 18th March, she moved on board Tin Hau, leaving us eight months later after many happily shared experiences.
Lynda had a huge number of important jobs to do below decks, mostly concerned with stowage. Ship’s stores, equipment and furnishings all needed to be sorted out and given their places, secure against a possible ninety degree knock-down or even a three hundred and sixty degree roll.
This left Jacqui to help me on deck with the mass of running rigging, the three sail bundles having just been moved on board. Lazy jacks and parrels were cut and rigged, as were the halyards, snotters, sheets and sheetlets. Jax, and Lynda when she had time, back-spliced all the cut rope ends, whilst I moved on to the next piece of ‘spaghetti’, usually at the top of the mast. I could never stop appreciating the view from there, and was always reluctant to leave.
On Saturday, 22nd March, we took Tin Hau around the harbour for the second time, for the purpose of swinging the compass under the direction of a friend of Lynda’s parents by the name of John Walker. A deviation card was produced, but the error, twenty-eight degrees, was still far too much. John said he would repeat the operation once he had acquired some better magnets from Cape Town.
However, the outing and the general progress since the launch was so encouraging that I decided we could phone Jeff in Swaziland to invite him to come down. He and another Swaziland friend, Jan Borrell, were to be two further crew members on the maiden voyage, and had long since planned a three to four month absence from their work. Jeff managed a respected construction company in Swaziland called Construction Associates; and Jan was one of those increasingly rare multi-skilled white farmers still farming in black Africa. We were indeed lucky to have these two along with us, especially with such little pressure on us from them as to the departure date.
Our sixth and final crew member (including ourselves in the count) has also been mentioned earlier – Barry Lamprecht, a photographer from the Eastern Province Herald. Never having had any experience of nautical matters, I think it was with some trepidation that he finally ‘signed on’; and he certainly proved to be another valuable addition to the Tin Hau clan. I, for one, really appreciated seeing the whole venture through one more set of eyes and from a different perspective. Barry saw the sea as something almost magical or mystical, and a phrase he often used during the maiden voyage was ‘this really is the last frontier, the last frontier for man to explore!’ He would at times almost jump up and down with exhilaration and at other times wear an expression of terror all over his face.
Barry’s press influence was utilised on two nagging problems almost immediately. Firstly, we had already approached the fire station in the hope of acquiring some redundant canvas fire hose which we wanted to cut into two foot lengths for use as anti-chafe on our mooring lines. We had received a polite ‘no’ by way of a reply. Barry, however, asked the same question and came back with large quantities of just what we needed.
His second action was even more useful. We had been shocked to receive an astronomical bill from the tug, the Blue Jay, for fifteen minutes of work on the day of the launch. The amount was almost equal to the total cost of the launch. Naturally, I went immediately to see Ted Page, the Port Captain, who had always been helpful and courteous in his dealings with us. He said he would see what he could do. Some days later I was summoned to his office and told he could not help. The matter was already beyond his control. On occasions like this a friend in the press – in this case, Barry – can be extremely useful. He went to see the port press office, threatened to spill the whole story to the Herald, and the result was all I could have wanted, a letter of apology in which all charges from the Blue Jay were waived.
This represented just one of the numerous paperwork jobs and worries I could have done without. Another concerned our customs drawback. Some of our imported items had been in the country for nearly two years, the cut-off limit for any refunds coming our way. I had to come up with some good reasons as to why we had been delayed and why I did not want to set off to sea quite yet. It was difficult to convey the sense of urgency and plead our cause when visiting the various customs officials secure in their box-like offices lost amongst numerous corridors and never ending fire doors.
I was helped by Rod May of our friendly shipping agents, Rholig, and eventually we saw the ‘big boss’, Mr Theron, Controller of Port Elizabeth customs. He had to refer the whole matter to Pretoria, but the final verdict was not too long coming and at least partially favourable. We were granted an extension to 1st June, by which time we had to leave South Africa if we wanted total reimbursement of the customs duties we had paid.
Another official department we had dealings with was the South African Department of Transport. We asked them to check that Tin Hau was being constructed in accordance with their normal standards, thinking that the resulting certificate might prove useful in the future. A Mr Ter Stege from the DOT visited the boat at the hangar and made some constructive comments which we were able to implement during the building stages. Later he called on us at the harbour on a few occasions to carry out some more thorough inspections.
The most important item of boat documentation we had to arrange was the small ships British Registration Document which, luckily for us and thanks to the RYA (Royal Yachting Association), was extremely easy and inexpensive to acquire. This new and considerably simplified system of registering a small British-owned pleasure vessel had only just come in– for once bureaucracy had moved in the right direction. The end result was a most impressive looking pale blue wallet something like a British passport. In all the places we visited it was always accepted, although often with some puzzled looks. The item most foreign officials needed that could not be found on the Registration Document was the Port of Registry. At first I tried to explain what RYA meant and where Woking – the RYA’s offices at that time – was, but later I answered the question in a simpler manner by just saying ‘London’. Most officials had heard of London and were happy with the answer.
Besides the British Registration Document and the South African DOT certificate there were of course numerous other papers, books and documents we had to carry. On the personal side there were our passports, our crew’s passports, any visas required for foreign countries (although we always obtained these on arrival), driving licences (in case we got near a motor car), VHF radio operator’s licences, Lynda’s paramedic certificates, my yachtmaster and ham radio course certificates, and our South African tax clearance papers. For the boat we had a radio licence and call sign (‘MEUD 4’), various test certificates on some of the materials used, such as the aluminium masts and the galvanised chain, manuals on every item of equipment we had bought and, finally, a most use
ful ship’s stamp and ink pad which I would bring to bear on every official paper that came my way. On leaving South Africa we received an impressive looking clearance certificate never looked at by anyone since.
One area of paperwork we ended up having nothing to do with was insurance. We never had any personal insurance, nor any comprehensive boat insurance. Both were far too difficult and expensive to obtain. On meeting those rare long distance cruising boats carrying insurance we were glad not to have been in their position. We met one cruising couple who had to carry a third crew member at all times or else their insurance would have been null and void. Finding suitable crew had often been a problem for them and had caused them much inconvenience. We could not believe that they had never been allowed – by a remote insurance company – to sail their beautiful boat, Leisurely Leo, across a sea or ocean on their own.
On another occasion, we were planning a passage from Larnaca in Cyprus to the Turkish mainland and had worked out the safest and most direct route, given the winds that looked most likely over the following forty-eight hours. We found to our amazement that certain other boats were unable to go with us round the eastern ‘pan-handle’ of Cyprus because their insurance did not allow it, and any variation was too complex to arrange in the time available. So they took the more difficult and dangerous way round to the west of the island.
Time and again we observed that it was yachtsmen with insurance who treated their yachts with the least care and were the most prepared to take foolish risks. Yacht owners without insurance were much more cautious. I feel that insurance companies, through no real fault of their own, have not helped improve safety standards at sea. And when claims do occur, often the long drawn out wranglings end unsatisfactorily for the boat owner.
Cutting the Dragon's Tail Page 9