Durban - An eMkhomazi (Umkomaas) family have told of their ordeal off the South Coast when rough seas and storm-force winds hammered their yacht, before rescuers towed them into Durban Harbour on Wednesday.
A pleasant tail wind on their departure from East London turned tempest, putting the yacht’s gearbox out of commission, breaking its steering gear, tearing sails and putting the sailors to a stern test.
The drama began about two months ago, Emil Pirzenthal told the Daily News on solid ground on Wednesday.
Pirzenthal, the owner of Aliwal Shoal Adventures in eMkhomazi, said the family had always wanted a yacht so, when his son Joshua found a suitable craft, a 45-foot ketch rigged boat in East London, plans went into motion.
Emil said they had cleaned the boat and completed the seaworthy paperwork and on Friday, he, his wife Michelle, Joshua, their future daughter-in-law, Juley-anne Jacobs, and two Jack Russells set sail for Durban. The yacht, Salty Cow, was named after their Jack Russell, Cow.
“Before we left the weather report indicated that there was a 20 knot westerly wind. We were going to use that to sail home. Along the route the wind turned into 40 to 50 knots. This caused considerable damage to the yacht,” Emil said.
In the middle of the storm the engine came off its mounting and cracked the gearbox. The mainsail tore and the steering head gear broke.
Emil had to use an emergency steering mechanism which allowed them to manipulate the rudder. Without the engine, electricity supply was too low to charge batteries. Two solar panels were damaged when a wave struck them off the deck. Battling swells of 10m, they could not reach the mainsail to untangle it.
They went for 36 hours without a sail, waiting for the storm to subside to climb the main mast to untangle the sail and improvise a new one.
“It was extreme wind. On the mast you could be swung around like a pendulum. Eventually when we climbed up we had to cut the sail in half to get some control. If we didn’t get up the mast and get the sails working we could have been stuck,” Emil said.
Michelle and Juley-anne were below deck in the cabin.
Michelle said: “It would have been more stressful for us on deck because they would have had to watch over us. We could have fallen or got injured. The wind was so powerful it snapped a climbing rope that can take four tons of weight.”
Emil said he kept the yacht close to shore behind the breakers as a quarter of the boat would submerge into the water on the side when they went into swells. All the while father and son were taking turns keeping the boat on course with their emergency steering gear.
“The storm was over two days. We did an approximately 160km in 12 hours in wind that ranged from 30 to 50 knots. For three hours we endured between 40 to 50 knot winds,” Emil said.
Michelle said the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) in Shelly Beach kept in contact with them and once they were out of radio range, Durban NSRI took over monitoring.
Michelle had to constantly give their Global Positioning Signal (GPS) over the radio.
“The NSRI concern for our safety was overwhelming. We were restricted in our sailing movements. We said we would get as far as we could. Our goal was to reach the Durban Harbour mouth,” she said.
Emil said:
“We did not panic. We had not slept for two days and were a bit knackered from using the emergency steering.
“Using the steering kept my son and me warm until we changed shifts. We would change every hour but when you stepped out of the cabin it was freezing cold.”
The rolling of the yacht prevented them from sleeping because the mattresses kept falling. They made a makeshift bed in the cabin passage so they had protection on either side from being tossed about.
Clifford Ireland, NSRI Durban station commander, said at 6am on Tuesday the yacht asked for help, 4km off-shore of Port Shepstone Lighthouse.
“With sunrise on Tuesday the wind picked up slightly. They continued to sail. An easterly wind had gradually changed during the afternoon, resulting in their progress being slowed.
On Tuesday at 8pm sea rescue craft Eikos rescuer 2 came to their assistance 35 nautical miles south of Durban.
Two hours and twenty three minutes later Eikos rigged a tow-line to the yacht. It was towed to the International Marina in Durban and moored at 2.30am on Wednesday.
Emil, who has been at sea for more than 30 years in commercial fishing trawlers and vessels, was full of praise for his rescuers.
“The professionalism of the NSRI makes us want to join them. I have experienced bigger storms in other boats and I knew exactly what those boats could do. In this case I didn’t know this boat and if it could take the storm. The boat, however, proved its worth in the end,” he said.
Daily News