Boat Race

It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage ~ George William Curtis

It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage ~ George William Curtis    

This weekend Jacqueline and I participated in the yearly Sogakope Race. On leg one (Ada Foa to Sogakope) I sailed with my colleague Jan. Our start was good and soon we were quite a lot ahead of the fleet. This continued for one hour but then the wind died and we were completely stuck right in the centre of the river with the current going against us. We had no wind for more than two hours and we went from first to 14^th place. I was very depressing… Late the wind picked up slowly and we started moving again. The whole race took 7½ hours and in the end we managed to come in third. However, the race was annulled due to too many boats which had to give up and did not want to sail on Volta River in the darkness.

It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage ~ George William Curtis

On the second leg (Sogakope to Subi Island) Jacqueline and I got a very bad start because we were obstructed right on the starting line. However, we soon got going again and moved slowly up the fleet. For a long time we were fighting with Duncan and Rupert for first but we never quite catch up with them. Instead we got stuck in a lot of seaweed and had to clear the rudder. By the time we got free from the seaweed we were third position and many boats were approaching fast. For a while we were fighting to keep our third position. In the end we nearly managed to catch up with Bill who was now second but he managed to cross the line 10 seconds before us.

Although we did not manage to defend our first place from last year we still did well and we are very happy with the result. Thea was following us in the rescue boat and managed to take some photos.

As per tradition a big party was hosted by Subi and I (sorry we) won a Porsche 911 for a day and our trophy…