Doughty the 72ft sloop owned by Ryan Lotter and was entered in the Mykonos Offshore Race on the 19th and 20th February 2010, and sailed under Knysna Yacht Club burgee. Of the 12 man crew, 6 were Knysna Yacht Club members, namely Ryan Lotter the owner / skipper, Oxana Naku, George Parkes, Brett Gething, Mark Gething and Greg de Matta. In addition there were 2 long standing members of Mossel Bay Yacht Club on board, Dave Elcock and the old man of the crew Melville Stephens at 82 years old.

The race from Cape Town to Mykonos started at 10h00 on Friday the 19th February with the 110 competing yachts on the start line off the Cape Town harbour breakwater in light and confused winds. As we approached the start mark, there were 3 other yachts also close hauled and heading for the start line – but in three different directions to us!! We were thus pushed over the start line with nowhere to go before the start gun had fired and had to restart thus costing us valuable time. As we sailed towards the Salt River mark, the wind increased to 25 to 30 knots, allowing Doughty to achieve speeds of up to 11, 3 knots close hauled. At the Salt River mark there was chaos as yachts converged on the mark, with crews shouting starboard and weather boat keep clear!! The leading yachts were already around the mark and had hoisted their spinnakers, taking off at high speed towards Dassen Island. We rounded the mark and as some of the top racing yachts ahead of us were broaching in the blustery conditions, with some even Chinese gibing, Ryan called for a cautious approach initially. We continued sailing downwind under main and foresail doing over 17 knots at times. Once we reached Bloubergstrand, we gybed and then hoisted our heavy weather spinnaker, setting off to catch the leaders. Looking back towards Cape Town and Table Mountain, it made for an impressive sight with all the spinnakers of the competing yachts billowing in the wind. We were now heading for a “gate” just off Dassen Island which all yachts had to sail through. We decided to take an offshore course heading out to sea, but sailed into an area of less wind. This decision however did not pay and those yachts that initially hugged the coast, before going through the Dassen Island “gate”, took many miles out of us. Due to the shifting winds and changing velocity, we did over 4 spinnaker changes in 4 hours as we headed for Dassen Island, thus keeping the crew on their toes. Due to the flat sea and the lack of size in the South Atlantic rollers, we were unable to surf off the waves, unlike the lighter displacement yachts that were continually surfing under the conditions. Just off Dassen we managed to blow our large asymmetrical spinnaker. We thus had to resort to the smaller asymmetrical spinnaker, which we carried while surfing at over 19 knots till just inside The Heads at Saldanha Bay entrance. Mellville Stephens trimmed the spinnaker all the way to Saldanha Bay – not a bad effort for an 82 year old sailor!! Due to the strong winds that blow in the entrance to the bay, we doused the spinnaker and unfurled the headsail tearing across the bay to the finish line off the harbour wall at Mykonos, crossing the line in 5th place. We were berthed in the Mykonos harbour, with many the other competing yachts rafted onto us. This lead to some festive parties being held onboard various yachts.

Saturday morning dawned with a light south easterly wind for the 24 nautical mile Pursuit Race around the extremities of Saldanha Bay, with the slowest yachts starting first. The first yachts started at 10h30 and as we were the fastest yacht, we were the last to start at 13h02, nearly 22 minutes after the second last yacht, Thunderchild. It was an impressive sight seeing as many as 80 yachts, all with their spinnakers up and sailing. Once around the weather mark up near Langebaan, we hoisted the big spinnaker at sailed down to the ore quay and then onto a mark in the northeast corner of Saldanha Bay. From there to we sailed to Saldanha Bay fishing harbour, rounded a mark and headed to round Markus Island, before rounding Jutten Island and back to a mark off the end of the ore quay. On our way back towards the ore quay, a very large ore carrier entered the harbour to anchor in the bay, causing many yachts (including us) to scatter from its path and unfortunately also from the light wind that was blowing. By this stage we had caught up with the leaders, but in taking evasive action from the ore carrier, we sailed into lighter winds and lost touch with the leaders. We then rounded the final mark off Langebaan and in the rising wind, had a quick spinnaker run down to the finish mark. We finished 11th out of 110 starters and 15 minutes behind the winners. We were very happy with our performance, taking the conditions and our handicap into account.

After the prize giving, we sailed back to Cape Town beating all the way into 20 to 25 knots of wind. However, by the time we reached Cape Town, the wind was by now blowing up to 45 knots which made for an interesting entry to our berth in front of Royal Cape Yacht Club. With Ryan’s expert seamanship and some nifty rope work by the crew, we managed to berth Doughty safely without any mishap.

Our next races are the Maputo to Durban Race on the 28th April 2010 and the Mauritius to Durban Race which starts on the 4th September 2010.