No Place to Hide – The Passage from Mauritius to Durban
Posted by Graham Cox
When John Guzzwell and TREKKA were in South African waters, John used to put everything aside in the evenings so that he could listen to his favourite radio serial on Springbok Radio, a science-fiction story called No Place to Hide. It ran from 1958-1970, and when I was a boy growing up in Durban, I remember listening to it as well. There was no TV in South Africa in those days, and a concept like Starlink was just another sci-fi fantasy.
I doubt that 2025 MGR skippers will have ears pressed to transistor radios, even if the series was still running, but after passing south of Reunion Island, and, questionably, Madagascar, there is certainly no place for them to hide before they reach Durban. Combined with the likelihood of adverse currents opposing strong headwinds, this makes the passage from Mauritius to Durban potentially the biggest test of boats and skippers yet encountered.
Satellite communication systems like Starlink, and weather prediction services like WINDY, have certainly made planning easier, but on a passage like this, the essential elements of risk management remain the same as they were for Guzzwell.
Mauritius proved to be a charming stopover for the MGR fleet, with beautiful mountain vistas, excellent food and friendly locals, though nobody enjoyed clearing in and out of Port Louis, where one has to lie alongside a rough, unprotected stone wall during the procedure. Several boats were damaged here, from Jasmine’s broken bowsprit, to Keri’s damaged solar panels. Delightful Grand Baie, 10 miles further north, where the fleet regrouped before the start, offered a welcome respite.
Getting ready for the passage to Durban was a mad scramble for some skippers, and they saw very little of the island. Here, Jasmine replaced NUMBATOU’s bowsprit, along with other general maintenance, while Josh was fortunate to purchase her spare mainsail, after SKOOKUM’s tore badly crossing over from Cocos to Rodrigues. Everybody had something to do. Later, as Adam made his way to the start from Grand Baie, he was dismayed when LITTLE WREN’s mainsail tore in almost exactly the same place as SKOOKUM’s, adjacent to the 580 sticker. He had to settle for an urgent repair with sticky-back sail repair patches upon arrival at Port Louis, assisted by several MGR skippers.
Luckily for the skippers, the local community pitched in and did what they could at short notice. The sailmaking brothers, Julian and Laurent, received special thanks from Jakub, who said they did an excellent job of reinforcing his sails at a reasonable price. As usual, the MGR skippers pitched in to help each other as well.
Eventually, all 11 boats crossed the start line, just to the south of the channel marker buoys, at 1600 local time on Saturday, 25 October. Renaud was first across the line, followed by Dan, though Keri overtook Dan for a while by setting his A5, despite the gusts coming off the mountains to windward. Jakub was a little late over the line, while Jasmine initially trailed the fleet, setting her jib and A7 wing and wing.
There has always been close racing after each mass start, but this time it is quite extraordinary. Nobody wants to be left behind on this passage to Durban, and even Ertan, our legendary, laid-back cruiser, is keeping TREKKA moving smartly along. On the morning of 28 October, he was lying in 4th position and had recorded a daily run of 132 miles! He had Jasmine on NUMBATOU in sight for some time, while Adam’s LITTLE WREN and Christian’s ARGO were half a mile apart on the morning of the second day out. Renaud’s CAPUCINETE was just ahead of Dan’s IMMORTAL GAME, with the rest of the fleet just a few miles further back.
Pilar is the exception. PETER PUNK was initially close to the leading three boats, until she peeled off to the west on the day after the start, choosing to leave Reunion Island to port. Theoretically, this made the distance to Durban shorter, but there always seems to be a large wind-hole in the lee of this high island and by the time she had worked her way through it, she’d slipped from 4th to 11th place. She is now sailing fast but the chances of her regaining her previous standing seem slight.
When Renaud called in the early hours of Monday morning (shipboard time), he said, “We had a very pleasant stay in Mauritius. The start was a pleasant thing, sometimes wind, sometimes no wind. I think the window up to Friday, Saturday, this week is good, maybe no wind at all for one or two days. And then we will have plenty of east wind south of Madagascar, which is much better than a south-west wind.
“At the moment I have my mainsail and an A5 up, but the wind is turning or shifting quite often, so there are lots of sail changes. Dan is sometimes beside me, sometimes just back of me. Just now, I have his red light exactly on the back. According to the AIS, we go same speed. It’s good to be near someone to race.”
Staying competitive is always hard work, though with conditions changing almost constantly, the effort requires even more energy. “Early this morning, we had currents against us, but now it has changed.
When you look on WINDY, you understand that it’s very difficult to know where to go, because it’s just a mix of currents from everywhere, and we change the position nearly every day, so I think we will need a bit of luck.”
On 27 October, Dan posted, ‘First couple of days at sea from Mauritius have been quite enjoyable for the most part. It was a fast start out of the blocks before heading across to the south of Reunion Island, which looks amazing from the sea, with the mountains towering up into the clouds. The currents were quite strange in the area though, and were turning very frequently, with quite a strong breeze along the coast. Last night was nice, with a generally favourable current, and I enjoyed some time under the stars, which at one point was interrupted by getting hit in the face by a school of flying mini squid, which was a first for me. Currently working my way south-west, with Renaud a couple of miles ahead. He has been in my sight since the start of this leg.’
When Dan called, 30 minutes after Renaud, he said, “I haven’t had any squalls, the wind has been mostly around about 15 knots, give or take, since the start. It was a little bit heavier yesterday. I had been a little bit further south, then I decided to skirt along the coast of Reunion Island, as there was more breeze along there. I think Renaud had the same idea.
“But there was a strange current through there, going all different directions. It would go one way for half an hour and then turn around and go the other way, and after a while, I think Renaud and I both had the same idea, that we just needed to get out of there, because it was just really strange.
“The plan for now is to just slowly work our way west before the wind dies out. There’s going to be a bit of a wind hole in here in a few days. I want to keep the boat sailing as quickly as possible to try and avoid the worst of it. At the moment, I’ve got an A5 up and a couple of reefs in the mainsail.
“The sea is a little lumpy, which makes it difficult to hold a straight course, so I have been doing more hand-steering than normal. Other than that, it’s been pretty good so far. I’ve had plenty of sunlight, which has kept the batteries charged. It looks like the weather’s going to be okay for a few days.”
Asked how he managed his sleep patterns when IMMORTAL GAME was so close to CAPUCINETTE, he said, “I’ve got one eye on the (AIS) screen and one eye closed. It’s good and bad in a way. It keeps me on my toes a bit more, because when can I see that he’s pulled out half a mile or so, it makes me wonder why I’m not going quite as fast.
“There are certain weather conditions when Renault is a bit faster than me, and some where I think maybe I move a bit quicker, or at least at the same speed. The only way that I can keep up with him is if I’m pushing the boat. I’m having quite a bit of fun with the competitive thing, but at the same breath, you’ve still got to look after yourself. I’m trying to sleep when I can.”
He says that he is still learning how to get the best out of the boat, especially when the Hydrovane is in control. “I’m using the mainsail quite a bit more now, though I trim it differently when the boat is self-steering. Sometimes I let the sail out more, so that it’s not catching so much breeze, and then when the boat bears away, the mainsail powers up, while the A5 is blanketed a little, and the boat comes up back up onto the course, which is really cool.
“I’ve been learning more about the boat this leg, because when you’ve got someone so close as Renaud is, it’s good to keep trying and testing things, to see where the speed is at. I can see Renaud on the AIS screen, but then I keep popping my head up, and I can see his light out in front of me. It’s amazing to be days into a race and be so close.
Asked how he was settling into the passage, he said, “My routine is all over the place at the moment, but I’m still trying to eat well, and sleep as much as I can. Though I haven’t slept that much on this leg yet. I think that’s mainly because I’m trying to keep the boat going. I suspect there’s going to be some windier stuff ahead, though, so I’m trying to rest up whenever I can.”
Asked about food, he said, “I’m still eating On-Track meals for dinner. Nicky brought a heap more from Adelaide when she came to see me in Mauritius. They are easy to prepare and really tasty, though I’ve been eating them for a long time now, and I’d enjoy a bit more variety. For breakfast, I have cereal, with tinned fruit, and for lunch I generally have something like tuna wraps or tuna with vegetables.
“I’ve got plenty of energy bars, protein bars, chocolates and things like that. I stocked up quite a bit in Mauritius because it’s probably the most affordable place that we’ve been to. I’ve been eating quite a few snacks since we left Mauritius. I didn’t have many aboard on the passage from Cocos Keeling to Rodrigues, and then I was crook after leaving Rodrigues. I lost a bit of weight then, so I’m enjoying my snacks now and putting weight back on.”
Keri was not due to call this week but mixed up the dates, so we had a quick chat before my next call was scheduled. He said, “I’m down to one working solar panel out of three. I left Mauritius with one defective panel, which I planned to replace when I got to Durban, but I think the second one was damaged when ORIGAMI rolled and crashed into the Customs wharf in Port Louis. I’d already brought the panel inboard, but the cables must have been damaged when they came into contact with the stone wharf.
“There’s no way of resurrecting the panel, so I am having to husband power. All communications are via satellite phone. I’ve only got 44 ampere hours at the moment in the battery, which doesn’t give me the 100% boost output I need to use Starlink. I’m just running navigation lights and the Echomax (active radar reflector), which you can hear beeping now, because there’s a lot of shipping around. I’ve got a merchant ship on the same course at the moment, and I’m monitoring his bearing relative to the stars above him, to see if he’s drawing to the left or right. It’s about four miles away still.
“I’m making quite good speed, with three reefs in the mainsail and the full jib, which is goose-winged. The seas are quite steep and close together, and I’m sort of surfing down them, but the rig is in a configuration where the Aries windvane can handle things easily. I’m also mindful of all the damage people have been getting to their mainsails recently. So, I’m husbanding the boat.
“I am unable to view the Yellow Brick tracker, see where the fleet are, or garner current or wind information (from WINDY, etc). If I can’t get my power up, I will just put my manager on a sort of warning cycle, so he can notify me if I’m heading towards anything that looks particularly bad, without transgressing any of the routing restrictions.”
Talking about the possibility of adverse currents, he said, “Because we’re not allowed a speed log, I can’t measure accurate speed (through the water), and I’m not using my plotter or anything. I switch the plotter on occasionally to get a fix, but decided I’d start doing traditional fixes, and I’m treating it for real, in case I lose my electrics altogether. I’ve dusted off the sextant, made sure it is working okay and that it’s properly calibrated. But it’s not good news, really, with a leg that is so tactical, to be running a bit blind in terms of decent weather and tidal information.
“The tidal stream is obviously very variable at the moment, judging by the shape of the waves. It would be useful to be able to correlate the WINDY current prediction model with what we are experiencing, to see how accurate or otherwise WINDY is, particularly when we come to making the decisions on the stronger part of the Agulhas Current later in the passage, and the gyre that is situated in the Mozambique Channel.
“Without that, it’s a little bit tricky, but it’s nice weather and lovely sailing. At the moment, there are no significant beam seas, so it is nice to be able to sail at hotter angles. I think that’s what I’ll do, use the overnight hours to sail deep, using a more manageable sail configuration, and then hot it up in daylight, pushing the boat harder, with higher wind angles, flying the A3, A5, A7, whichever is most appropriate for the wind strength at the time.”
Ertan continues to sail amazingly fast, especially since he still reefs TREKKA down after sunset and sleeps all night. He was eating breakfast in the pre-dawn darkness when he called. “Well, so far so good. The weather is fine. I do okay during the daytime, but I go to sleep at night.
“The first night, I didn’t sleep very much, because I had to help the Hydrovane, but at the moment the windvane is working fine, so sleep is easy. The sea state has been really good since we left. I think everybody is around me; I just checked the tracker. I caught up with Eric three times. Once, I was actually 100 yards away from him, and then I peeled away and went a different direction.” Asked if they chatted on VHF radio, he said, “No, Eric always is always outside. I called him a few times but he never answers his radio. He is right next to me now – I can see his green light.”
Asked what sails he had up, he said, “I’ve got the jib up. When I left, I had the A5 up most of the time. And that’s why I was going so fast, because I was helping the Hydrovane. But you have to stay on deck. So now, when the weather is stable like this, I put the A5 up during the day, and then go back to the jib during the night. The boat is going one and a half knots slower because of that, but I can’t stay outside all the time.
“I sleep most of the night. I get up and have a look around obviously, but then go back to bed. During the day, I’m on deck most of the time helping the Hydrovane to stay on course.” When the conditions are right, he has been known to assist the vane gear while lying in his cot, pulling on some ropes he leads through the hatch, but at the moment he finds the boat sails better if he is on deck.
He’s trying to average 5 knots and stay in the middle of the fleet. After he’d finished breakfast, (boiled eggs prepared before departure from Port Louis, bread and coffee), and had a wash, he planned to go on deck, hoist more sail, and go back to assisting the Hydrovane to steer a fast, straight course.
Jakub is also pushing hard to stay with the fleet, and has crept up from 10th to 7th place since the first day. He said, “I kind of started lazy, and I just couldn’t catch up with the rhythm, but it’s only a matter of like five, maybe seven miles to the main fleet, and probably about 20 to the leaders.
“The weather is good, although I was hoping to have more of a close-reach. The wind is well aft of the beam again, which is not my ideal course in this boat. On a big boat, rolling could be quite pleasurable, but on a small boat, it means you are just thrown from side to side.
“Also, I don’t have any spare sails, and when BIBI is sailing downwind, I cannot balance the rig as easily as if I had, for instance, two A5s, or two jibs. If I put the jib opposite the A7, then I need to roll in a bit of the A7 to balance them, which does not make a very good shape. Same with the A7 and A5 – then I need to roll the A5 in halfway.
“I have ordered a spare A7. This is the only spare sail I’m going to have. I think the A7 is the most useful sail. It’s excellent for the trade winds, because it’s light, but has a very wide range of uses, from light winds to stronger winds. In some places, twin jibs would give an advantage, and I remember Adam had this advantage when we were running with quite strong winds, but I am hoping that the wind won’t be that strong in the South Atlantic (after leaving Cape Town), so I thought it would be best to have twin A7s.
“I have the jib opposite the partially-furled A7 at the moment, but the wind is getting lighter. After breakfast, I think I’m gonna change to the A7 opposite the A5, but I’m hoping to take things a bit easier today than yesterday. I did a lot of hand-steering yesterday, and I think I got a bit overheated by the sun, as I had a big headache during the night. I took some Nurofen to ease the pain, but that affected my stomach, and I probably drank too much coffee and cocoa.”
Asked why he did not have his little cockpit awning rigged, he said, “I just wasn’t thinking about this, plus there was quite a gusty wind yesterday, and if I put the awning up, I’m restricted with maneuverability in the cockpit, and to do anything with the sails would be much harder.”
He has not provisioned with much food for this trip. “I’m going to eat adventure food, of which I have about 14 portions – you know, the food that you can just fill up with water in the bag. And then I have a lot of freeze-dried food. It’s not really tasty, but I have about one month’s rations. And then I have one fresh fruit per day. I also have my cereals for the morning, so knowing my routine so far, I’m not overloaded by the food, but I’m sure I have enough to go even to Cape Town.”
Although, like most of the MGR skippers, he is more anxious about this passage than earlier ones, he says. “What I found after all those passages is that my anxiety is not built by the conditions outside, because very often, even with big waves and a strong wind, I could be quite comfortable in this boat, but the anxiety is that, if I’m making myself comfortable, I’m too slow against the others, and this makes me angry.”
I don’t think Josh suffers from this sort of performance anxiety. Since the start of the MGR, he has approached this event more like a climbing expedition than a yacht race. The speed of an ascent is not important, apart from making the most of suitable weather windows. You don’t race your teammates up a mountain to see who can get to the top first!
He was in his usual, upbeat mood. “It’s a fine morning. The sun came up about 6 o’clock I guess, so half an hour ago. It has been beautiful weather since we left. Clear skies. I mean, shoot, there’s hardly any clouds. A couple of little ones around. I think there’s supposed to be high pressure coming in the next couple days, and I think this is probably the beginning of it. I got some good rest the last couple nights. I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep, because it was a mad dash to get the boat ready to leave Mauritius.
“The sea-state’s not bad, probably, one-metre waves, maybe two. The swell is just past 135° (off the bow), so a deep, broad reach. I’ve got three reefs in the mainsail and the jib, because last night was pretty windy. I’m going to have to put something else up (this morning). Since leaving Mauritius, I’ve used everything, absolutely everything. I left with the main and the jib, and then the first night I switched to the A7, and then yesterday I switched to the A5. Then it got really light and I switched to the A3, but once I rounded the southern end of Reunion Island, it picked back up again, and I went all the way back down to reefed mainsail and jib last night.
“Right now, I’m chasing some current. The current here seems to flow west, so I’m gonna go more west and southwest, and try to stick with it, and stay out of this big hole in the wind that’s developing over the next couple days. I’ll try passing south of Madagascar between 50 and 100 miles off, probably 60 miles. I’m going to follow the deepest contour, which is about 60 miles offshore. It seems like that’s the best way to stay out of the strong winds, too – there’s an acceleration zone right around the southern tip.” (WINDY is showing a patch of 30 to 35 knots, right over that shallow shelf extending south of Madagascar.)
It was somewhere around there that Robin Lee Graham had the worst weather of his entire circumnavigation aboard 24ft DOVE, in October 1967, while running before a NE gale. Struck by a nasty wave, DOVE almost pitchpoled, a porthole was stove in, and the companionway doors cracked. As Josh says, “All you need to do is get a little bit of a swirl in the current, opposing those seas that are running hard on the edge of the shelf, and I think that’s what happened to him.”
Asked about steering, Josh said, “SKOOKUM is steering itself right now because I just woke up, but I did a lot of hand-steering yesterday, for about 10 hours or something like that. We were sloshing around a bit, and the boat just wouldn’t go the way I wanted it to.”
He is very happy with the replacement mainsail he bought from Jasmine, which is in much better condition that his old one. “I had the sail maker in Mauritius take a look at my A7, because the foot was starting to come apart a little, and there was a place where some stitches had come out in the middle, which I had taped up. The A7 was used when I got it from Niels (BIGGEST MONKEY) in Antigua. It had already crossed the Atlantic, and he had used it pretty hard.
“The A5 and A3 still seem to be in pretty good condition. I’ve taken good care of them. I don’t furl them, obviously, and as soon as they come down, they go into the bag and I put them down below.”
It might also be fair to say that he does not work them as hard as more competitive skippers do. “I leave them up until the boat starts rounding up. On the windvane, that’s one thing, but if I can’t keep SKOOKUM from rounding up when hand-steering, I take them down and reduce sail area.”
Although short of time in Mauritius, he managed to get all essential tasks completed. “My windvane needed a little bit of attention. There’s a stainless-steel bolt in the side that checks against a vertical tube to set the course angle, and the bolt had worn a hole all the way through the aluminum tube. I could not tighten the bolt anywhere between 90° and 135° on the port tack, where I’ve obviously used it the most. So I put a control line on the clutch, and added two cleats to the stern rail for the control line.
“I really like the new setup. You can fine-tune the course-setting a lot more, and I can adjust it easily and quickly. Once I’d figured that out, I just end-over-ended some lines and replaced a couple soft shackles. I also took a bit of line off the drum of the jib furler, as it had too much on it when I set the furler up. It was hard to let the sail all the way out before, because the line jammed on the drum.”
Speaking of provisioning, he said, “I’m carrying about 105L of water, enough for most contingencies, and also stocked up with the things I usually like to eat, such as spaghetti, fish tacos, and Asian noodles.” The only treat that tempted him in Mauritius were raspberry tarts. “When I was in Chamonix(a town in the French Alps just north of Mont Blanc) for skiing and climbing, I discovered that they sell these little raspberry tarts that come in a box of nine. And that was like my absolute favorite thing. I was thrilled to see that they had them at the store in Mauritius, so I got five boxes.”
He has quickly settled back into life at sea. “One of the benefits of having shorter stops in Rodriguez and Mauritius was that I didn’t get too comfortable ashore. I was able to stay in that offshore mode. But it only took a day to get to the southern tip of Reunion. I can still see the tops of the mountains astern, although just barely through the haze. I haven’t felt totally at sea yet.”
Jasmine called later than scheduled as she’d been up much of the night trying to get NUMBATOU settled down. She said, “When I looked at the weather predictions during the previous day, the wind was meant to be steady, like 15 gusting 19 knots, and but it was actually more like 20 gusting 25. I had bigger sails up than I would have had, if I’d known what the wind was going to do. NUMBATOU was over-correcting quite a lot and was very uncomfortable. But I had a lot of sail up and went really fast, and I’ve overtaken people.
“We’ll randomly see each other, and then someone will go off in a different direction. I could see Jakub before, and now I can’t anymore. I passed him the other night – my AIS went off saying you’ve got BIBI of Cork nearby – and then during the day yesterday, he was on a mission to overtake me again. We got to a point where he was basically in line with me, only half a mile away, and then he just drifted off to the south. I could see Adam, too, but now he’s gone off too far north. I can see Ertan now.
“I’ve not slept much so far on this passage. I’m just getting into the swing of it again. Obviously, this leg is very much about watching the weather and your route very carefully. But it is entertaining having other boats around and watching them, too.
Asked if having the other boat so close made her more competitive, she responded, “If I see a boat pulling away from me, I’m like, ‘Okay, what are they doing that I’m not. That’s the same when I view the tracker, so seeing them is just an early tracker update. It just motivates me rather than bringing out a competitive edge. I don’t want to pass them – I just don’t want to get left behind.
“I hand-steered the entire time on the first day, until I went to bed, for eight hours or something like that. And then I hand-steered a bit yesterday, not masses, and I might do a bit more today. I’m hand-steering when I want to go at a certain angle (bearing) and the Hydrovane won’t do it – it over-corrects and back-winds the sails. I’m trying to figure out a way to stop it from over-correcting.”
NUMBATOU crossed the starting line with A7 opposite the poled-out jib, but Jasmine later raised the mainsail to increase speed, as she was being left behind. Since then, she has been making a lot of sail changes. “The wind at the start was really changeable. After setting the reefed mainsail opposite the A7, I switched to A5 and mainsail, then I reefed the mainsail, and then all night I had the A7 up. Yesterday morning, I put out the A5 and the A7 on the other side.
“Right now, I am flying the A5 and A7, which is the biggest combination of sails I will do. It has to be calm for me to use the A3. I had the mainsail up until last night, but dropped it because I was getting overpowered, and the Hydrovane was over-correcting, pushing me too far south. I might put it up again today, now the winds dropped slightly.”
And so, the fleet charge on, tightly bunched. In a couple of days, they will be approaching the southern tip of Madagascar and striking out into the Mozambique Channel, where anything can happen. John Guzzwell wrote, ‘The currents in the Mozambique Channel are strong and quite unpredictable. One day would find us set 30 miles north of the course and the next day far to the south… I was pleased that there were no islands or reefs in the vicinity for us to hit.’
Despite having one day’s run of 155 miles (current assisted), TREKKA experienced constantly changing winds, and John even hove-to for a few hours during a strong NE wind. TREKKA and John took 20 days to complete this 1700-mile passage. It will be interesting to see how the MGR fleet fare. So much depends on the weather. They say that a week is a long time in politics, and it can be at sea, too, especially in these volatile waters. Even a 24-hour delay might mean missing a weather window, and being forced to spend several more days at sea.
