“The Ocean, finally”. The tale of Nicolò von Wunster

He didn’t have to run away from anything, he just wanted to fulfill his dream: to cross the ocean. So Nicolò von Wunster put an ad online to find boarding and found himself in South Africa aboard an Oyster 625 to the remote island of St. Helena and then Brazil. Logbook of an excellent sailor’s first time in the ocean, taking Italy aboard a British boat. Nicolò (who Has an impressive sailing record. Two-time Italian Tornado Champion sailed 30,000 miles around the Mediterranean on his Baltic 38DP) tells us about his “Ocean Passage” in four installments, full of useful tips.

The Ocean at 60 – Cape Town to St. Helena

I still could not quite understand the contours of this decision of mine, yet I had actually desired and thought about it for more than 40 years. Sail across the ocean or to put it bluntly sail around the world in two years.

I read every possible book and sailed all over the Mediterranean, first with chartered boats then with my beloved Baltic38 DP. Now at the age of 60, I could no longer put it off. The problem is certainly not sailing, if you have passion and have sailed a lot you can do it, the real problem is leaving but not “escaping.” I got the idea from Naty, the daughter of my friend Giulio, who put me in touch with a professor of physical education in Lugano who was using platforms to find boardings, such as www.oceancrewlink.com or www.findacrew.net. In October I entered my profile and a cover letter for Oyster’sCrew Recruiting Officer, Charlie Durham. From the links I visualized many opportunities; after two months of polite but inescapable “declines,” I realized that perhaps no one is boarding a 60-year-old.

Moreover, with no experience of ocean crossings. Especially if you are a captain of your own boat, as an owner you have little credibility as a Watch Leader and no track record as a First Mate or Ocean Skipper…much less as a Chef.

What I have is an Italian boating license over 20 miles and two SUB licenses. Unfortunately, not the really useful certificate, the RYA-MCA Yachtmaster Certificate possibly obtained in England, the bible for professional ocean skippers. When I had almost put a stop to it by then, while I was working on the computer, an email arrived with a two-line introduction:

Dear Nicholas

Thank you for your recent interest via Ocean Crew Link. We realize some time has passed but please could you let us know if you are still interested and available. We are looking for crew for Ocean Pearl’s Atlantic crossing from Cape Town (approx. departure 9 January 2023) to Grenada (approx. arrival date end February 2023). If so, please could you email us an up-to-date CV? We look forward to hearing from you. Best regards

Roger and Mary

I thought it was one of dozens of e-mails sent out and that my CV would be surpassed by other candidates, younger and more English than me and with more bluewater experience. Instead, the next day I was on video call with the owners Roger and Mary. To my question whether I was not too “old,” they replied that with their respective 78 and 75 years to go…I turned out rather “young.”

On board would be along with me and for the first experience in the Ocean, Mary’s 54-year-old nephew Paul and David a young engineer from Durban, 23 years old and never been out of South Africa before, and the two shipowners with ¾ of a round-the-world trip behind them.

The next day Roger wrote me that I was embarked, expected on January 6 to take part in some Oyster Ocean Rally events. I still couldn’t believe it, two months in the ocean with the Oyster 625 Ocean Pearl. I immediately thought how to communicate to the family that instead of three weeks I would be gone two months and instead of the North Atlantic Ocean I would be crossing the South Atlantic Ocean for about 6,700 miles.

South Africa, Port of Cape Town

Cape Town Airport, South Africa, January 6 night. Roger Kendrick, the 78-year-old owner of the Oyster 625 is waiting for me. With his sport guide we reach Cape Town harbor after midnight. Everyone is asleep but Roger offers me a welcome Gin&Tonic before retiring to my cabin, all to myself with a hatchway to the deck and a porthole in the side. No doubt quite a luxury for a Watch Leader, a figure on the last rung of a crew.

For those embarking, like me, not having ocean experience everything has to be proven. To be on a boat in such an endeavor, in addition to knowing what to do at the technical operational level, you have to know how to get along with the captain, the entire crew, 24/7 and in a confined and isolated environment for days at a time. So: humility, diplomacy, and appropriate behavior to gain respect in command and execution of orders without prevaricating or being prevaricated.

On the morning of Jan. 9, the news comes almost quietly, Roger informs us that a rigging check revealed a broken strand inside the swage of the left low rigging. Plausible after 25,000 miles of sailing. It will be two weeks before we receive the part to be replaced from England, and two days to de-hull and re-hull.

The intuition of eating Italian

Two weeks spent in Cape Town in which I was allowed to do my own parallel galley, after realizing that on English boat we would be eating English meals, I procure the ingredients to ensure that there is real Italian cuisine on board.

I had already brought some Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola cheese, Carnaroli rice and the inevitable Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Tenuta Calissoni Bulgari. The upper berth in my cabin then became the Italian Grocery on board, accessible only by me of course. What was it made up of? But from the basics of the Mediterranean diet and good living at the table: several types of Rummo pasta, Pelati Mutti, Rio Mare Tuna, Olives Capers Anchovies, local Pecorino and Guanciale made by Italians who emigrated there many years ago (which turned out to be excellent), an additional supply of Extra Virgin Olive Oil from a local estate owned by an Italian family. This is followed by dried porcini mushrooms, Leprotto saffron, Star vegetable stock cubes, and other important basic ingredients of our cuisine.

An insight: if the great passion for sailing is based on the world’s “the slowest mean of transportation” why not match it with the best of the world’s “slow food”? Instead of nourishment, food culture would be made on board–if the English language has conquered the world, Italian cuisine is the most famous language globally spoken at the dinner table. The link between the well-known elegance mixed with English seafaring resilience and discipline and the iron uncompromising Italian discipline in cooking and good living. The operation will succeed perfectly. The Galley (kitchen) will become my kingdom on board. On the other hand, when faced with a risotto alla parmigiana accompanied by freshly caught, pan seared barracuda or an authentic guanciale e pecorino carbonara, who can resist?

Toward the lost St. Helena

At 6:30 a.m. on Jan. 26, Mary calls the harbormaster’s office by VHF radio, asking them to open the two bridges, one drawbridge and the other swivel, that separate the marina from the ocean exit. We move into the silence of a perfect morning Table Bay, with the ever-present seals intent on fishing at first light, leaving the increasingly defined silhouette of Table Mountain behind us.

Facing nearly 2,000 miles to be covered in 10 days, first with a NW broad and traverse upwind route, climbing almost parallel to the coast of South Africa in winds that can reach up to 30 knots in the height of the southern summer, for at least 300 miles. Then to follow a WNW course until passing the Valdivia Bank and joining the South Atlantic Trade Winds blowing at an average of 15 to 20 knots and ESE direction, with a gait eventually in the stern.

I am sailing in the ocean, immense and cold where seals continue to swim in the waves, albatrosses perform incredible glides on the slow and imposing waves, gentler than those of the Mediterranean. The activity on board is very intense there are five of us covering night and day shifts, and Roger with his precision as an officer of the Royal Navy pins on the bulletin board the Watch Rota sheet with hours and names of each, in a perfect rotating mechanism divided into two night hours and three day hours for each with two hours of communal watch Before 8 p.m. dinner time. The time zone is kept fixed to that of Cape Town (UTC + 2.00) until Saint Helena.

The comfortable life on board

Procedures include two generator turn-ons in the morning and evening to bring the Lithium batteries back into charge, which must not fall below 30 percent charge and brought up to about 90 percent. At the same time, and only with the generator on, the watermaker is turned on, as well as the strategy regarding the use of water tanks and their filling is well defined. Without a generator, the risk is to run out of water and after 24 hours without being able to cook, in addition to suspending the services of the freezer, ice maker, and refrigerator, almost all of which are essential for the very high quality we allow on board.

Throughout the crossing we had plenty of water, so much so that we could wash with generous showers every day. The same water forms the reserve of drinking and cooking water thanks to carbon filters upstream of the tap. I did not think it was possible to drink desalinated water, but actually after my initial wariness it became the rule. The absence of carbonated beverages of any kind, in addition to the policy of dry passage (no alcohol) except for a few celebrations, will contribute to my weight loss despite poor daily aerobic and physical exercise.

Another element that seems to contribute to weight loss is the constant rolling under the twin headsails alone, a passive exercise of the body constantly seeking balance even while sleeping.

The Size of the Ocean

Days timed by shifts begin to take on that routine typical of going to the seaside, where the term vacation does not fit at all. In the boat there are yes moments where you can read, but they come after all the tasks imposed by sailing in various forms. Sleep is essential to avoid falling asleep during the hours of late night shifts spent alone in the cockpit.

Then there are all the sail adjustment and restraint maneuvers. Clearly on these boats hydraulic and electric systems take away all physical fatigue, however, great care must be taken how they are maneuvered since the powers expressed are high and a forgetfulness of a stopper or restraint can cause major damage to rigging, sails, rigging and even physical damage to the crew. Given the constant rolling, attention to everything you do must be utmost, as well as for moving around the deck and below deck.

Slowly you enter the dimension of the Ocean and leave the dimension of the disappearing land. The perception of the earth and its hectic activities becomes increasingly blurred. Propelled by the trade winds, it feels like traveling on a spaceship always at the same speed with direction toward a constant and unchanging horizon. Thought begins to adjust to this immense space, isolated within the perimeter of the hull.

Twin Jibs and birthday

On January 30, after 4 days of sailing and about 750 miles with mainsail and genoa, the entire crew is called by Roger on deck to hoist the second genoa. This new trim makes the best use of the now almost full stern tack, with the classic system of “twin foresails,” in this case a lighter genoa being hoisted parallel to the one already hoisted, and after furling them together we proceed to open them with the sheet points on opposite edges, using the spinnaker on one side and the boom end on the other, with the mainsail lowered.

The maneuver is executed very precisely and Roger himself from his 78 years of experience and 25,000 miles behind him on the Ocean Pearl, works the bow firmly secured to the life line. I cannot deny my admiration to see that your passion for sailing allows you to go beyond the classic “I’m not old enough anymore” canons.

The 9 is among the numbers that bring me luck, and it is on the ninth day of sailing that we finally glimpse St. Helena on February 4, my birthday, a beautiful and unforgettable gift.

We celebrate with a cake baked by Mary and the inevitable bubbly to celebrate on board my birthday, which thanks to the local time difference of two hours less than Cape Town will remain the longest birthday ever….26 hours. In the morning, the spectacle of the island and this unique cove so welcoming after 1750 miles is unique.

The Q flag, yellow in color, is hoisted regularly, and after a while the service pilot arrives to take us aboard to accompany us to theharbor master ‘s office to register our official entry into St. Helena. The land-sickness quickly sets in, and the pleasure of walking on land mixes with the excitement of discovering this remote island in the middle of the ocean.

Island that has been a landmark in past centuries for many navigators, from the Portuguese to the Dutch and then to the British. To this day it is British overseas territory with Ascension Island and Tristan de Cunha Island. In St. Helena there is a central street with small stores, boarding houses, a bank a post office. It looks like a small English village left over from 1950. The 4,000 or so inhabitants all seem to know each other, they speak English with a thick accent, and the impression is that there is not that much to do-the British government spends over 35 million pounds each year to support this island, and, with all due respect, the island lies in almost decadent immobility. In the more fertile areas we see more artisanal cultivation and almost everything is imported.

On the walks I met English and Scottish tourists and discovered that the island is a destination for groups of divers who fly in from Johannesburg (single flight) for beautiful dives. Away from any tourist flow, the few visitors all know each other, meeting in the very few gathering places. During our three-day visit to the Island, we meet the newly installed British Governor Nigel Phillips to deliver to him a letter Paul had received from the descendant of the Island’s first Governor.

Then, on my way to Plantation House (Governor’s residence) after hours I am greeted by the lady of the house, Emma, who I discover is the Governor’s wife and who very kindly gives me a tour of the house and garden where I meet tortoise Jonathan. The world’s oldest giant tortoise (191 years old!). The next day, with a visit to Longwood House (Napoleon’s last residence) we take leave of the Island and resume the sea westward…

….continues. Next: Saint Helena – Salvador de Bahia