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STOP PRESS ..... 22 January 2012..... Greetings All! we have just returned from a 2 month West Coast sailing trip and are in the process of starting our 2012 sailing schedule and courses again. ( see courses page for more information )
SUMMER NEWSLETTER 2012 from ‘ the Whale Whisperer’.
23 January 2012.
Firstly greetings to you all and a happy and prosperous New Year and may your sailing be filled with fun, excitement and lots of adventure this year.
Many of you have heard me say often whilst out sailing in Table Bay or elsewhere that “even a bad day at sea beats a good day in the office “or similar words like “this beats a day in the office” etc. I have yet to have a student disagree so I guess I consider myself very blessed and fortunate to pursue one of my passions, the sea & sailing.
However it was with a fair degree of sadness and regret that four friends and I sailed Chantecler, our 45' Roberts blue water cruiser back from Saldanha Bay this past weekend where I had spent the past two months. These two months were part of the Practical Mileage Courses we offered giving past and present students as well as some of you who had never sailed before, the opportunity of doing a competent crew course or just gaining some valuable sea miles and sailing experience away from Cape Town in one of the country’s most beautiful sailing environs, i.e. the Langebaan Lagoon & Saldanha Bay area, as well as St.Helena Bay and the West Coast.
To quote an often used phrase,’ all good things must come to an end’ so here we are, back in Cape Town ready to start another sailing and teaching year filled with enthusiasm as we strive to offer quality sailing courses and charters in 2012
Welcome to the Second Edition of the Cape Town Sailing Academy Newsletter.
(Winter/Spring 2011)
It was just over a year ago that we had the Southern Right Whale breach onto Intrepid and when looking at the image once again it seems like it happened yesterday. The whales are back in Table Bay, and sailors need to exercise great caution as these magnificent mammals literally just ‘pop up ‘out of nowhere, often within a stone’s throw of the yacht. I think many of us learnt from that breaching experience and the golden rule is to start your engine if they are close. They have poor eyesight so your engine noise is the best warning. The problem arises however if you are sailing at night!!! Methinks, having a little word with Neptune won’t be amiss.
The most exciting news this year however has to be the ‘new addition ‘, i.e. namely Intrepid’s Big Sister, Chantecler!
We bought a lovely ‘blue water cruiser’, a 45 foot Roberts that needs plenty of work, but has a great history. She came first in her class in the Cape to Rio race in 1993. Then went on to do a world circumnavigation and has been somewhat sadly neglected since her return to Cape Town in 2001. However in the last 6 months all that has changed. She is sound, seaworthy and sails beautifully, has passed a SAMSA and SAS survey and has been registered to go “Offshore and International etc.” We are planning to do the Governor’s Cup in 2012, so watch this space!!!
More immediate plans are to spend some weeks over December and January 2011 sailing up the West Coast visting Dassen Island, Saldanha Bay, Langebaan and Mykenos as well as St. Helena Bay, Port Owen and Elands and Lambert's Bay etc. Any past and present students interested please contact us for more info. Toodles from ' The Whale Whisperer.'
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This is the first edition of the Cape Town Sailing Academy Newsletter. (Winter/Spring 2010)
Much has happened since we started the school in August 2009, so as ‘the new kid on the block’ so to speak, this is the end of our official first year and what a year it has been.
Not only were we able to teach many students the art of sailing, but we were also able to instill in a lot of them the same passion for this sport that Ralph has. It is great to see students attend an Introduction to Sailing course or a Competent Crew course, get hooked and then take it further to Day Skipper level and beyond. In fact Ralph has taught quite a few students who have bought their own boats and need a minimum Day Skipper license to be able to legally sail in SA. They are able to learn on their own yachts and the competent crew students get the chance to sail on a variety of different boats, thus enhancing their skills.
The legal process involved in getting a yacht commercially endorsed with SAMSA is onerous to say the least. Not only does the yacht itself have to be commercially endorsed by SAMSA and have its own DTC number, the teaching skipper is also supposed to have a commercial endorsement that qualifies him/her to teach/take charters legally in SA waters. Despite the fact that Ralph has RYA and SA SAILING Yachtmaster certificates of competence, is an RYA Cruising Instructor and is an accredited SA Sailing Examiner, he still needed to do yet another exam with SAMSA in order to get his commercial endorsement.
It is great to see that people do not get put off by the colder weather in winter and continue to come sailing. In fact, the sailing weather in winter is often better. Though not as warm as in summer, the Northwesterly and Southwesterly winds are often steadier and more pleasant to learn to sail in than the often gale force Southeasters. If you have warm clothes and wear a ‘beanie’ it can be a lot of fun.
Of course the most exciting event for the school was the breaching of the juvenile Southern Right whale on Intrepid on Sunday 18th. July 2010 (Madiba’s birthday)
what an awesome experience this was! To get so close up and personal with such an amazing mammal was an incredible incident. The bottom line however is that both Paloma and Ralph are lucky to be alive, a second later and the whale would have landed on top of us and we would both be history now. Another saving grace in this ‘freak accident’ is the fact that Intrepid is a steel boat. a fiberglass yacht would probably not have survived such an incident. The media frenzy that the pictures and video created both locally and internationally was unbelievable. Strangely enough the impact was bigger in the States and the rest of the world than here in South Africa.
It was also quite funny when people asked us if we had to push the whale back into the water or when we told them the dog house was irreparably smashed, to be asked if we had a dog on board. The only unpleasant part of this unbelievable experience were some false accusations from misinformed people and mischief making by some of the media who implied that we had been harassing the whale. The video clearly shows this not to be the case and as we have often said, ‘Sailors do not harass whales! In fact most local sailors here in Cape Town will tell you of ‘close encounters’ with these magnificent mammals as we see many Southern Wright and Humpback whales at this time of the year. In fact, often the Port Control Authorities will warn ships to be on the lookout as they have whales at the entrance, or even inside the Duncan Docks or the V & A Waterfront. It is quite a common occurrence. What we have learnt from experts in the field is that whales have poor eyesight and that to be safe, always have your engines on.
Finally, as many of you know, Intrepid has been up and “sailing” for the past three weeks. We have successfully qualified the first six competent crew students on the ‘new look Intrepid’, are busy training some Day Skippers and although Intrepid has a slightly shorter mast, she will get a “new look” as soon as the bimini is fitted in place of a fixed dog house. These students have already made history by being the first ones to have completed a Competent Crew course on Intrepid, the ‘famous yacht’ that survived a whale breaching.
(For more about this story with news and pictures go to the News and Gallery pages of the website. www.capetownsailing.co.za. Pictures will also be put up as soon as the bimini is back on
We are also on face- book under “Yoga & Sailing in Cape Town”.
So from the ‘Whale Whisperer’, toodles from Cape Town.
Join the 'elite' group of students who are making history by training on the famous Intrepid, the boat a Southern Wright whale breached onto on the 18th July 2010 in Table Bay - enroll for sailing course now!!!
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