Day 2: Rough times and tough times

Sunday 3am, the southerly hit. Accompanied by a few rain squalls – it was a long night. Very poor visibility, and terribly cold and wet due to the non-stop rain. There was no sunrise. We didn't have a day, only 12 hours that were slightly less dark than the night.

The conditions on Sunday afternoon were very reminiscent to those experienced in the 2011 Vasco da Gama (a yacht race from Maputo to Durban): high winds and very rough seas. Waves were crashing over the cockpit, making it a very uncomfortable experience. We had lost our wind instruments and mast head navigation lights and our visibility was down to 20m due to the mist and driving rain. Many of the waves had about 1m of white water on top of them that could have made situation very different for us if a bigger one were to hit us. It got to the point where the safest thing we
could do was drop the entire mainsail, lash it to the boom and use only the storm jib to broad reach through the thick of the windiest part of the front to get to the calmer water on the other side.

With more men down than up at sunset, and the rough conditions still prevailing, we decided rather to take it easy through the night. We had already lost a spinnaker pole, and didn’t want to risk shredding the main sail. With the boat packed up snugly, we got ready to see out the last of the rough weather.

After all, as Naas would say: the Currie Cup wasn’t won in June.