"Racing" the Double Cape 2011 - hmm delivery trip to FBYC

It was to have been a race, but this is Cape Town , no guarantee the weather will play ball !!!

After a delayed departure from our mooring, Chen headed out and motored to the start off Clifton. Arriving at the start as a gesture of , 'we'll try race'; we put up the main and the no1, engaged neutral and drifted very slowly over the line..... The bigger , lighter yachts headed out to sea looking for wind hoping for a bit of a westerly. We just drifted, when did we want to arrive in Simon's Town, definitely not on Sunday. So engage gear and motor/sail, an hour wasted but we feel we did give the race a chance.

Conditions at start of Double Cape Race , Puma started to motor as we motored up to them....

FarMed made their decision early and didn't attempt the race, wise move as it turned out giving them a late afternoon arrival at FBYC.
For us off Karbonkelberg we got decent wind from the South so we started sailing again and took a long tack out to sea. Best thing that could happen would be the wind moving to he West and we'd have a great fetch to the Point, again wishful thinking. We tacked and eventually off Scarborough we joined up with Paprika and Storm, staying in their company all the way to Simon's Town.
Rounding Cape Point at sunset was beautiful, there was nooo wind the sea was flat calm, thanks Craig for the photo of Chen.

Cape Point and CHEN

Even though it was a long day at sea it was not boring, we had a couple of encounters with Whales, may have been the same pod, they seemed to follow us up to the point.

Whale company