Hout Bay from the South side of the bay.
Note the addition of that question mark? it was certainally a very close thing at the time.
The next race on the cards will have been for the 1994/5 season, in past years another Cape Town yacht club had been the race host.
They were expected to do so again but came up with some financial demands on the race director Mark Shrader, that just did not go down well at all.
Mark then contacted the HBYC and asked if we would make a proposal to host the next race?
Mark Schrader
Captain and Project Director.
Mark was a member of the First Team in 1982. He has two single-handed circumnavigations of the world and was the first American to singled-handedly circumnavigate the world via the five Southern Capes in 1982-3. He has lived in Washington State for over 35 years and is an avid marine conservationsist and wildlife advocate.
Alan Batley, the HBYC Commodore at that time, called the clubs various committee heads in and asked us could we contemplate this offer and if so, what would we offer and how fast can we commit and place our offer on the table?
Time was as ever was very short, the phones and faxes were busy daily (no emails then) my own involvment was how to berth the race fleet on the marina and for those Open 60 yachts with very deep keels ( around 4.5mtrs) where to berth those?
The battle plan was put in place and we all then had to work towards a common club offer to the BOC, we had been told that certain monies may be available to assist us but not how much, we decided to go it alone and see what we could manage, any funds that came in later were then a bonus. Part of the plan we were forming was to involve the whole business community in Hout Bay, the spin off to them should then allow a donation from them and help with our funding.
Some race history:
The BOC Challenge race was established in 1982, with main sponsorship from BOC Gases. The race was inspired by the Golden Globe Race, which was the first single-handed round-the-world yacht race. Although the Golden Globe was a non-stop race, the BOC Challenge concept was for a single-handed round-the-world race, to be run in stages (in contrast to the Vendée Globe, which is non-stop). As the longest single-handed event in the world, it is regarded as one of sailing's ultimate challenges.[1]
The race is run every four years. The first edition was won by Philippe Jeantot, who won all four legs of the race with an overall elapsed time of just over 159 days. In 1990, the race was renamed the Around Alone; for 2006, it is known as the VELUX 5 OCEANS Race
The fleet line up for the 1994/5 looked like this:
Class 1 50 to 60 feet long
Christophe Auguin Sceta-Calberson France
Steve Pettengill, Hunters Child, United States
Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, Vendee Enterprises, France
David Scully, Coyote, United States
JJ Provoyeur Novell S.Africa South Africa
Arnet Taylor,Thursday's Child, United States
Josh Hall Gartmore, United Kingdom
Mark Gatehouse QAB, United Kingdom
Isabelle Autissier , PRB, France
Class 2 40 to 50 feet long.
Dave Adams, True Blue, Australia
Giovanni Soldini, Kodak, Italy
Niah Vaughan, Jimroda II, United Kingdom
Alan Nebauer, Newcastle Australia, Australia
Robin Davie, Cornwall, United Kingdom
Minoru Saito, Shuten Dohji II, Japan
Floyd Romak, Cardac 88, United States
Neal Petersen, Protect our Sealife, South Africa
Simone Bianchetti, Town of Cervia, Italy
Nigel Rowe, Skycatcher, United Kingdom
Harry Mitchell, Double Cross , United Kingdom
This makes for some twenty entries and to be berthed and serviced in Hout Bay Harbour, can we do it?
I think the size of the task was just accepted, we all made our plans in our own sections, some were as follows:
Alan Batley was well aware that our presentation had to be slick and well managed, he made no bones about this and really underlined we were to be in top form, from the start to the end.
Alan had information that the Race Director had provided, one was that an appartment or hotel suite should be available for the duration of the event and that this accomodation must have a sea view so that the boats could be seen arriving. There are very few spaces in Hout Bay that fill the requirement more that Chapmans Peak Drive number 1, its an apparment block on the South side of the bay. How Alan sourced a suitable vacant appartment as the clubs offer I never found out, he just did!
Another requirement was a room that the press could use for the period of the race, the old clubs upstairs Function Room was made available for that, Telkom would install extra phone lines etc. The Function Room has its own entrance and wash rooms, so it could run 24 hrs if required?
Alan also sourced a video tape of a flight over Table Mountain to Hout Bay, this was to show just how accesable the HBYC can be from Cape Town.
The marina side was going to be hard pressed to berth all the fleet, for sure the marina would never take the big boats, those to 50ft and with a resonable keel depth could be found a space though.
The marina sits in water around 4 to 6 meters deep, a high tide is 1.9 meters, so you can see what the big boats had to be fitted in the harbour on their own. I made contact with Nature Conservations Dr Johann Neethling and bounced some ideas off him.
The first one was would the department allow the HBYC permission to move some of the marinas 11 meter fingers over to the inside of the North Harbour Wall? I thought this would be six or seven fingers? We were given permission.
I then asked if the department had any movable Porta Cabin type rooms we could set up on the North wall as offices and administration, we were offered two that were used as class rooms in the Cape Point Nature Reserve. It was also expected that lectures for students would then take place in the harbour and be run by Nature Conservation. You can imagine the input the twenty race skippers could have put into those lectures.
The next ask was a big one, do you have a crane? again the answer was yes, it was I think in Saldahana or on the West Coast but they would make it available, all of this was at no charge, the education side would serve as payment enough. We would need a crane 24/7 to service the fleet, the cost to hire one would not be affordable.
The marina and club section was now more than part the way there, we could offer all this to the BOC and we fixed a date for Marks visit. The meeting was to discuss and show all we had arranged, we spent some five hours with Mark and his colleague
taking them around the HBYC club house, the appartment on Chapmans Peak Drive, the visit to the marina and harbour went down very well and we then hosted our guests to lunch at the Mariners Wharf . We took a private cabin, we were about eight or nine in all, the food was good and so were the refreshments.
From memory those present at the lunch meeting were, Alan Batley, Commodore, Dudley Turner, HBYC President, Janet Liversy, Roy McBride, Marina Committee, Dr Johann Neethling, Chief Director of Nature Conservation, Mark Schrader and colleague (who's name escapes me) for the BOC. Thats seven recorded, who were the others, I have asked the club to see if we still have a BOC file, we may find out then.
We certainally parted friends and had to wait untill Mark had met with Nigel Rowe in England, then the decision would be made on our offer.
History does of course record that that we were turned down but we were informed that the presentation made by the HBYC to the BOC was the best made by any club world wide, plus what we offered was in line with their requirements and no other club had offered a Press Room like we had.
Why did we fail?
The reason given for the failure in our being chosen was the fact that access from the city for spectaors and service crews was seen to be just too far away.
You can not blame us for trying!
Roy
