Doughty the 72 ft yacht from Knysna Yacht Club has won line honours in the Vasco da Gama Race finishing at 12H43 today Friday 30th, Doughty finished at a good pace with a 10knot south easterly breeze

Final Results

Report back by George Parkes

Doughty the 72ft sloop owned by Ryan Lotter and was entered in the Mcel Vasco da Gama Race from Maputo to Durban on the 28th April 2010, and sailed under Knysna Yacht Club burgee. Of the 14 man crew, 6 were Knysna Yacht Club members, namely Ryan Lotter the owner / skipper, Oxana Naku, Brett Gething, Thomas Holmes, George Parkes and Greg de Matta. In addition there was a long standing member of Mossel Bay Yacht Club, Dave Elcock onboard.

Doughty left Durban for Maputo on Friday 23rd April with favourable south westerly winds blowing. Carrying a full main and staysail only and making good use of the conditions, she sped northwards with speeds regularly over 20 knots as she surfed for long periods at a time. Doughty’s time from Durban to Richards Bay was 2 hours better than the current record, although the officials wont ratify it and she took 26hours from Durban to Maputo – a distance of over 330 miles. After spending some time relaxing off Inhacca Island, Doughty then sailed over to Clube Naval in Maputo. She anchored on the edge of the Maputo harbour navigable channel opposite Clube Naval, because even with her keel up, she still draws 2,1m and the surrounding mud banks are only around 1,5m deep at low tide. The crew made use of the very irregular ferry service provided by Clube Naval to reach the yacht club and return onboard. Fine hospitality was provided by Clube Naval who served meals at all times of the day and had many kegs of bitterly cold 2M beer on tap, to quench the thirsty crew of all the competiting yachts.

On Tuesday 27th April, Clube Naval organised a round the bouys race with a 2 mile windward / leeward course in the navigable channel opposite the yacht club. After a slow start due to very light conditions, Doughty eventually took the lead as the wind increased to 13 knots and won the race easily. We flew our largest spinnaker on the downwind legs and with the narrow channel to negotiate, this made for some interesting navigation descisons for Brett, our navigator. The Fast 42 “Skitzo” won the spectacular looking trophy of a sailing Galleon. Clube Naval gave all the crews a very impressive send off dinner that evening with many large trays of the famous large Maputo prawns and white mussels cooked in white wine served in abundance.

The Vasco da Gama race started at 12h30 on Wednesday in light northerly conditions. “Skitzo” got away quickly, but once we were able to, hoisted our Code Zero foresail and soon overhauled them as we all sailed down the navigable channel towards the Indian Ocean. For most of the way down the channel the Doughty crew sat on the leeward rail. Once we had cleared the last mark of the course off Maputo with the northerly having freshened, we headed south towards the Inhacca Island lighthouse which we past at sunset. Here we were able to hoist our largest A-symmetrical spinnaker and made course for Durban, while still heading offshore to be able to obtain what assistance we could from the Mozambique current. The crew made themselves comfortable for a long night on the weather rail, where some managed to catch a few minutes sleep with their lower legs dangling over the gunwale. However, after about 3 hours of downwind sailing where we were achieving a steady 10 knots, the wind died totally and we drifted aimlessly for a further 3 hours with the log showing 0.00 knots at times and the speed over ground reading 0.24 knots, that being the little assistance from the current that we had while 20 miles offshore. Soon after midnight there was a change in wind direction and with a light south westerly now blowing, we headed south east and further offshore in an attempt to see if the current wasn’t possibly further out to sea. By sunrise we were now 39 miles offshore and still unable to find any current to offer us assistance. Ryan then decided to head back inshore as the south westerly started strengthening and by midday we were beating back inshore in 20 to 25 knots, where we managed to get a lift off the shore. Not long after sunset we were hit by a rain squall and the south westerly increased in strength to 45 knots at times. We had to shorten sail putting two reefs into the main and hoisted the staysail. By dawn on Friday the wind had dropped and we were now ghosting down the coast off Stanger having gone back to full mainsail and genoa. With the wind slowing swinging to the south east, it took us 3 hours to sail the 17 miles from Balito to the finish line off the Durban harbour entrance using the large Code Zero foresail once again, passing close to Umhlanga Rocks on the way. We crossed the line at 12h43 on Friday afternoon taking line honours in the 43rd Vasco da Gama race. We now had an agonising wait for “Skitzo” to finish and see if we could possibly also win handicap honours. “Skitzo” eventually finished at 18h32 that evening thus depriving us by 28 minutes of a possible handicap win as well. Prize giving was held at Point Yacht Club on the Saturday evening and a very festive time was had by all.

Our next race is the Mauritius to Durban Race which starts on the 4th September 2010.