We finally departed Mindalo at 4pm and began a most satisfactory sail under our secret weapon for trade winds, "the twins".
Sao Vicente looked splendid and quite a bit " lost world" like in the late afternoon sun.
We were on a course to take us out of the 'Canal de Sao Vicente 'and to basically take us further south to around the thirteenth latitude before we turned west towards Barbados 2100 miles away.
We had just enjoyed a splendid dinner of pork chops and champ when the VHF radio issued a D.S.C. alarm. It was a mayday call from a yacht in distress, apparently he had lost his rudders and had been adrift for three weeks. We plotted his position and discovered he was about 15 miles from us. Changing course to intercept his position and allowing a small error for drift we worked out we should be able to reach him in three or so hours. We also made a mayday relay call which was answered by another American yacht "Mona Kai" who had just left Mindelo , the yacht in distress was an American with a southern accent. There then began a lot of radio chat including HF calls to American rescue coordinators and MRCC in the Canaries. It became apparent that the Cape Verdes have an extremely limited capacity for rescue at sea. We were basically on our own. Dave and I dug out the parachute sea anchor rode, this was 300 metres long and was rigged with a " bridle " at one end which we could deploy from each of Hocus Pocus's hulls. It's basically a "Y" connection that equalises the load on the towline, spreading it between the hulls.
Once we had formulated our plan we informed our new friend that we intended to take him on tow to Mindelo. He had been trying to steer his disabled boat by using an outboard motor but was running out of gasoline to power it, besides his position put him 35 miles past the Cape Verdes so he had essentially missed them, we also knew how awkward it would be to return via the sound between Sai Vicente and the island of Santo Antao as the Canary current in combination with tide meant that there was a constant flow against you approaching from the south of anything up to 4 knots. It was very dark and typically according to Sod's law it was
. There was a 2 metre swell running and the wind was gusting 18 knots. Not the best conditions for finding another boat let alone attempting to get a line aboard. Dave made last minute preparations to our line which was carrying a half full jerrycan of gasoline on the end, due to the pitch black conditions I suggested we attach a white fender to make it easier to spot. Pretty much where we expected to see him the 9 metre catamaran came into sight or rather his masthead lights did.
We dropped our very long line upwind and circled the catamaran to " lasso" it and enable the crew to snag the line with a boat hook, sounds easy doesn't it? Trust me it isn't.
By this time the person aboard was sounding exhausted on the radio and it was with great relief that we had insisted he rig a bridle for his end of the tow as having no rudders was always going to make him a " dead weight" as it turned out the catamaran followed us like it was on rails. Perfect! We love it when a plan comes together.
Dave did the first spell at the helm as we began the tow, we could only make a slow speed and it was quite rough, our rescuer reported he had been sea sick and we could well believe it as the motion was quite bouncy however he was obviously relived that he was finally on his way to safety. He cancelled the mayday and we thanked the yacht Hona Kai for standing by.
Now began the long dark tea time of the soul as we crawled north at 3-4 knots.
This plotter screen shows our track.
Come the dawn we were approaching the most difficult part of the tow with wind tide and current all against us.
Our speed was averaging about 2 knots and while Dave slept we chatted with Christopher about his journey so far. He had bought the boat in Largs intending to sail it to the American Virgin Islands as a live aboard. He was singlehanded and had lost both rudders somewhere south of Las Palmas, since the he had been essentially drifting, rescue authorities would only direct him to ships in the area or at one point had offered a helicopter which he had refused as it would mean abandoning the boat. The helicopter must have been near the Canaries as I believe the Cape Verdes are out of flying range. The progress through the canal de Sao Vicente was painfully slow and repeated calls to Mindelo Marina went unanswered. I think that the staff listen out on handhelds which have a very limited range to transmit. However I managed to contact them on the satellite phone and arranged to ring again if we continued to fail to raise them on channel 72.
Around noon we were finally approaching the entrance to the Grand harbour and I got in a satellite phone call to Kei Brosman who owned the marina and requested assistance to berth the catamaran, Aku Mhor, our biggest catch so far!
The yacht Jacaranda came out to meet us along with the marina work boat. We controlled the tow until told by the work boat to release and take in our massive line! To be honest it was all a bit Keystonene cops but in a typically African way they muddled it!
So our first Atlantic crossing had consisted of 82 miles about 40 of which were towing a Catalac 9 m!
Quite an epic, and we were back were we started, however Christopher and his boat were safe and sound, team Hocus Pocus retired to the floating bar for a well earned drink.
Team Hocus Pocus with Christopher Langham ( light blue shirt )and team Jacaranda on the floating bar in Mindelo post rescue.
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