Previously – Journey to The Ocean: The Launch of SV Catching Up! Part 1
Where we left off… our baby had just been delivered to the Knysna Yacht Club on a bitterly cold morning. By now, it was 07h00 and the sun had already started cresting the horizon. As we all huddled around trying to get some feeling back into our fingers I noticed out the corner of my eye, two ladies in swimming costumes strolling down to the water. We collectively commented that they had to be crazy to get into the water when it was almost unbearably cold outside. I did admire their commitment though! We decided that by now there was no point in being at the yacht seeing as there was no way for us to get on board her, as well as no one would be working on her until 10h00. We decided to head back to our accommodation, warm up with a hot shower and go grab some breakfast. For those inquisitive, we decided to go to what appears to be South Africa’s national breakfast hangout WIMPY. The place was packed and the food was not half bad… explaining the high occupancy rates of the restaurant.
After breakfast, it was straight back down to the Yacht Club where we were met with our mast, rigging and boom all sitting on this massive trailer system. On our mast, most of our gear had already been installed such as the security cameras, mounting brackets for the Garmin Radar and our spreader lights. Our mast kind of resembled a Christmas tree with all the ornaments neatly arranged. At about 10h00 the real work began, our static dissipater for our lightning system went on, as well as the antennas for our range extender. While this was all happening, someone brought over a flimsy rusted ladder and placed it under the sugar scoop. I decided to risk it and climb up to see what was going on inside. Out in the daylight, the interior really came to life. While it was still quite dusty, most of the interior was already clean. You can only really appreciate the woodwork when you have good lighting conditions these were perfect. I admire how the Knysna Yacht Company has such a good attention to detail. For example, on our helm seat we have a lifting cushioned armrest for those long days on watch. When the armrest isn’t being used, it’s stowed upright. Knysna realised that the underside of the armrest would always be visible when stowed upright and decided to add a stunning wooden finish to the polished stainless steel.
Returning down to the ground I strolled around the car park turned worksite getting footage of the yacht. As you can imagine, tourists, boat workers and the public were walking past us. The yacht was in the heart of the tourist spot, as well as in an operational marina. My favourite thing to do was to stand back and pretend to be one of the media crew that Knysna Yacht Co hired and to listen to these strangers’ opinions on the yacht. The comments I overheard just brought a smile to my face. People commented on the style, size, height and even our Flexofold propellers with rope cutters. Every single comment was positive; I never overheard a single negative comment that entire day.
SV Catching üP! 