How things change, how they stay the same…..

A change  – again!

Irena and I are sad to say that, after 6 weeks of digging – emails, phone calls, lunch and coffee meetings -- even a try out work project with some prospective associate partners – we are going to pass on getting established here in Cape Town. It’s a lot like Vancouver here, just as beautiful and everybody wants to live here, but work is thin on the ground. (What work there is in South Africa is in Johannesburg, and who wants to live there!) But the killer is the wage rate. If we persevered, say 6 months to a year, we are sure we would find traction here, but the market rate for our services is way below international standard, making it tough to put money aside. So next week, we will sail on.

We have had fun here. We have made a lot of friends and are very sad to be leaving them. Sunday, we are having a going away pot-luck party on board, young and old, SA and expats alike. And we are selling BensonL.

Our destination is the Azores, 5200 nautical miles away. (The Azores are about 1000 miles due West of the Straights of Gibraltar). This will be our longest passage yet, if we go nonstop and not take a break at Saint Helena. Along the way, we will sail north about 2000 miles in the SE trades, 100 to 300 miles in the doldrums crossing the equator, another 2000 miles up through the NE trades, and finally into the variable winds of the North Atlantic where we will find the Azores. It’s a big run, a drift and a big beat to windward respectively, but in generally warm waters, and in moderate wind and waves. Our guess is we will take less than 45 days, maximum. Our passage planner software says 36 days, but I think we will not be so fortunate with the wind. We will not sail in any tropical storm zones, so no cyclones. At worst we might have to dodge an early spring storm in the North Atlantic as we approach the Azores.

But that is a long way off! For now we are doing the usual preparations – fuel, food, water and hull, rigging and sail checks. We replaced two lower shrouds that had died of old age (broken strands), but otherwise, we are in good shape. Irena has been cooking and freezing meals. The only thing missing is our Ritchie compass. After 6 weeks, the warrantee repair agent still has yet to get the replacement seals……… so I guess we will reinstall the old compass leave without it. 

Many hours I have spent on passage thinking about how to make our Hydrovane self-steering perform as it might. We have had pretty good service from it since installing the stronger shaft, the third mid shaft bearing, and a thicker water rudder. However, light airs downwind, and even moderate airs on the quarter remain a challenge for Natasha, as we know her. In light apparent winds like those we anticipate on this passage, there is not enough control authority in the wind vane to steer fully. So finally, here in Cape Town, I have had some time and materials to design and build a vane with a true air foil. It’s a NACA foil 0018 with a 22% chord depth. It’s about 46 inches tall and 18 inches deep, so it’s big, but light as I built it from model aircraft supplies – Foam, balsa and .6mm a/c ply, on the original frame, covered with a heat shrink film. It’s not nearly resilient enough for the offshore environment, but it should do as a test bed for the concept of using a true foil section for the wind vane instead of the manufacturer’s flat panel vane. John at Hydrovane is as excited as I am by the experiment! I hope it doesn’t blow to smithereens the first time I put it up!

Once we set sail, we will be largely out of email/radio contact for the firsts few weeks at least as the nearest shore based station is in the North Atlantic. (The Pretoria station seems off line). But as soon as we can we will post to the blog on our progress. Stay tuned!

Reflections

The poor in Cape Town, don't live in Cape Town, they live beside it....

Last week, we spent a morning in conversation with a South African whose career is devoted to the cause of bringing the country out of apartheid and creating a society of greater equality and political stability. He is now consulting with NGOs of modernizing economies all over the world seeking to address issues of poverty and creating responsive, effective, government.

Alas, he is not optimistic about South Africa’s future. In the simplest terms, he says South Africa, is prey to the same global economic forces that are a exacerbating the gulf between the rich and the poor. The firmly entrenched ANC government, having co-opted many of the anti- apartheid revolutionaries, is now seen as corrupt and ineffectual. Whether for lack of will or ability, the income inequality, perhaps the greatest in the world, is worsening. Official unemployment is 40% and increasing. The consensus is that the majority blacks and coloured people of the country are worse off now than under apartheid. Many mobile, educated (mostly) white South Africans have left, or are leaving the country. 

As we are doing.

And that’s the point about structural unemployment. As jobs for thinly educated people move around the globe seeking different countries to minimize costs, those left behind have few options. Few are wealthy enough to follow the jobs, if indeed governments at either end will permit them to do so. At home, without work, they languish into social dysfunction, with enormous cost in suffering and wasted humanity. The mobile – those with education and money like us - follow the wealth.

This is deeply unjust, and to my mind, unconscionable in a modern, self-aware society. To argue “a rising tide lifts all boats” is to conceal the truth. The advantaged and wealthy minority do way better with their well-heeled boats of a birth right education and starting wealth. They have fast passages and fair landings in stout boats. The majority, especially the poor, have leaky boats, through no circumstances of their making, and they are sinking in the storm of globalization. No way can the flimsy craft of hand, stand up to the juggernaut of global corporate iron. And where is government? As governments privilege some with super powers of incorporation and banking charters, they must be re- distributing the wealth that otherwise follows the tilting table. Greed and the will to power must not be allowed to runaway with this truth.

Farewell good South Africa, I hope someday to return to join the fight!