The concept race agenda is now on the site. For further inquiries and questions please contact Boj. He will sort all our wishes and make the definitive planning.  

This year Winsome will celebrate her 40th birthday. Now it is not the kind of thing you do, to ask a lady her age, but some things in life can not pass unnoticed. It is quite an achievement for a lady of this age, not only to compete at inshores and offshores at a regular basis, but till this day she even manages to win races, on both hemispheres. An exceptional achievement. This is all thanks to the dedication of Harry, keeping this lady in ’ship shape’ year after year. Thank you Harry, you and Winsome make it possible for a lot of enthusiastic sailors to experience and enjoy great moments on the water.

In 2012, Winsome once again will berth in the Medina at East Cowes. After her winter, staying at Berthon Boatyard, she will once again be ready to take us all out on the Solent, Channel and who knows where our next adventures will take us. The 2012 concept agenda will soon be posted on the site, please all look at your agenda’s and contact Boj to let him know what your intentions are for 2012. Some events may have several feeder races incorporated which are compulsory to sail the events (i.e. Cowes week), Boj can tell you all about it. Furthermore, some of you may have outdated pictures of yourself on the site or addresses or phone numbers which have expired. Please let me know if  these need to be changed.

Looking forward to another great season, let’s not forget to bring balloons, a birthday cake and some champagne the next time we’re on board.

Bon Vents!

Our two stowaways scrolling through Lisbon

direction France…

bye bye Portugal

hello France (Normandie)

On both trips some God wanted to show us that it is already winter in Europe. Bad weather, icing, outside temperature at FL260 minus 43 degrees Celcius. We could not even have used our boots at these temperatures (one of my forgotten ground school lessons, refreshed by Urs on the flight to Cherbourg) in order to avoid the destruction of our boots.

The boots are situated on the leading edges of the wings and they are blown up (like bicycle tubes), at temperatures not colder than minus 40 degrees Celcius, each minute or each three minutes to get rid of the ice formed. This would otherwise influence the airflow over the wings and thus finally reduce the lift creating by the winds going over the top of the wings. All technical stuff, but knowledge badly needed in these circumstances.

Strong hail greeted us at Cherbourg. Pilatypus was the only aircraft that day. Two smaller aircraft were parked on the ramp. Finally, finally, finally we landed at an airport where we were not only not the smallest aircraft, but at the same time the largest.

In Sophie’s house in Morsalines, near to Cherbourg, Margharita gave signs of being frozen. Urs and I made quickly a large fire, whilst Sophie hurried to open a bottle of red wine. Margharita had to admit that she did exaggerate, whilst shifting her chair backwards three times because of extreme heat. In spite of the heat created, she insisted to go into a hotel. This is exactly the reason why you should never allow stowaways on an aircraft. Only problems, though in this particular case the stowaways made excellent choices of hotels in Marrakesh and Lisboa. Let us call it a draw.

The next day, 18 November, I made my last trip to Budel where I disembarked. Urs continued with the two stowaways to Locarno to have Pilatypus in position for another 100 hours service with Pilatus in Buochs, starting 2 January 2012.

18.222 Nm on two Qt of oil (plus a neglectable quantity of Jet A-1 fuel) with an engine we can fully trust.

Thanks to everyone who has been able and willing to read my blogs. I hope you have enjoyed them as much as we have enjoyed our trip.

Next year plans: either Round-the-World via Kazachstan, Mongolia, South Korea, Japan, Aleutian Islands, British Columbia Canada and USA or to Egypt, East Africa, Madagascar and South Africa.

finally at Sophie’s fire place…

Last week I realized that the world keeps turning. Happy and unhappy events interchanged: my grandson Theun appeared on Dutch TV in the Junior Master Cook Competition, my friend/Master of the Zebráky Hounds had a very bad accident with his horse and is now in coma in a hospital in Pilsen, my friend/ex Transportation Manager of Akzo died at high age, DSK went into hiding in Israël, my nephew Michiel de Ru became father after Koosje delivered a healthy baby by the name of Boris, the € finally lost some ground to the $ meaning Pilatypus gained value being paid and valued in $, whilst my dog Jimmy may never want to leave Yvonne anymore.

Laáyoune was uneventfull, except for the administrative chaos at the airport not used to receive any private aircraft at their place in the desert. Four Russian Antonov’s under UN Flag, one Air Moroc arrival and two wrecks of helicopters at the end the runway was all what we can report. We finally borrowed a ladder from one of the Antonov’s enabling Urs to put our 2nd Qt of BP lubricating in the beautiful and reliable Pratt & Whitney engine (895kW Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A67B turboprop driving a four blade constant speed). It is really a beauty and we continue to listen to the music coming out of it endlessly. With all parameters always in the green the pilots feel happy like children.

on course to Marrakesh

Marrakesh was quite interesting, though dirty. Margharita Lanfranconi and Bettina Arbenz waited us in the hotel (though not at the airport as we had expected, so they may now expect some penalty points at Aerolocarno). We had to pass very narrow streets to reach the hotel in a 10 minute walk. Margharita really made a very good choice. A very nice and tidy hotel called Riad Kharradine with excellent service; very friendly Italian owners, not expensive. We could recommend it to anyone who wants to visit Marrakesh one day. Free laundry service ánd free WIFI.

welcome to Marrakesh

Bettina, Margherita, Sophie, Harry

database upload at Marrakesh

Our flight to Lisboa was nice and without any hassle. Only changes in the approach caused us to operate the Apex fast and efficiently. Well you understand, it was a piece of cake for Urs. For me it still would have been a big chocolate cake with hills and holes. Lisboa is a very busy airport but thanks to our excellent Handling Agent Safeport, we had no problems of whatever kind.

leaving Maroc abeam Casablanca

approaching Portugal from South

Today is sight seeing in Lisboa. The first time, 20 years ago perhaps, I was here was with Hubert [✝] and Wilma van der Lugt, Piet Vroon and Patricia during a BIMCO Meeting. The second time, three years ago or so, for a fox hunt with Splinther van Everdingen, Relinde and Geert.

The hotel here is also a pearl (not Steinbeck’s): Palacio Ramalhete. It is a big old (1785) house transformed into a small hotel. Extremely nice, clean, pleasant, not expensive ánd again free WIFI with strong connection.

Our next flight will be to Cherbourg, then Budel. We smell our stables already, every day a bit stronger.

I call my 89 years young mother regularly by Iridium Satelite phone from the air. She hardly seems surprised, but every time she starts by saying that I must enjoy my life. She is right of course.

Will be continued.

One month after we made our first Atlantic crossing, Praia-Natal, we made our return crossing Natal-Praia. The first time, Praia-Natal, we had to fight 8 knots of headwind and the rotating of the earth from East to West. This time we had two advantages i.e. 5 knots of tailwind and a positive rotating of the earth i.e. against us. We had no time yet to calculate the advantage of the latter. It will have to be done under the Christmas tree [unter dem Tannenbaum]. The advantage of the wind was calculated quickly: 8+5=13 knots or about 18 minutes.

only water…

crossing the equator at W032…

a long flight over water from Natal to Praia

avoiding weather…

finally at Praia

Today we did not do anything, just visiting the plateau in Praia. Drinking some coffees and having a swim.

We are ready for our next flight to El Aíun, Moroc, tomorrow. Until here we logged 15K Nm on this trip.

Will be continued.

Cyber Café in Praia Cabo Verde

We closed the loop with a fairly easy trip from Belem to Natal. After our very nice but exhausting visit in hot and humid Belem we could use a break and we got it.

At the end of the extremely nice reception and touring around by Expedito Menezes, we were “robbed” by the handling agent Lider in Belem charging us with exorbitant amounts for having the a/c kept less than 40 hours in front of their tiny hangar, for not made communication charges, for fuel more expensive than wine etc. Anyone visiting Brasil with an a/c make sure you avoid them! Well we know we cannot win all the time, but this was a big loss and reminded us to the robbery in Fiji last year.

our tracking to Natal

again water and jungle…

beaches north of Fortaleza

In Natal they knew us from our first call in Brasil on 11 November and that helped. We got, thanks to Sophie her homework done in her Lonely Planet for Brésil, a much better and nicer hotel and we enjoyed the evening, discussing what would happen if we had to land on the water in case of an engine failure.

again at Natal

Next trip Natal-Praia, Cabo Verde.

The flight went without any problems. In spite of hazy weather, no thunderstorms. Under us jungle, jungle and jungle with many many arms of the all mighty Amazone River.

Coming under the control of Belem Air Traffic Control, we received an order to fly a HDG [stands for heading which is the direction on the compass, i.e. a magnetic course] of 393 degrees. When Urs replied this was not clear, the Air Traffic Controller gave us a new HDG of 3393. All of a sudden another voice came on the radio, apparently someone speaking much better English also being a better Air Traffic Controller, who gave us a new HDG of 110 to intercept the ILS-DME LOC of RWY 6. Everyone who wants to come to the Brasilian World Championship 2014 should think twice or come by boat.

At the airport we were awaited by Expedito Menezes and João Antonio Garcia Jr of Global Agencies Maritime, Spliethoff’s Agent in Belem, Vila do Condo, Munguba etc. They organized an impressive trip over the Amazone and it’s powerfull arms during which my shipping heart got to life again.

We saw a Saga vessel loading aluminium ingots for Japan (?) on one side of the pier, with a Fednav vessel discharging alumina on the opposite of the pier. Then we “inspected” the pier where mv Singelgracht will soon load bulk clay for UPM.

Harry, Sophie, Expedito

Skyline of Belem…

At the right FEDNAV discharging bulk alumina, at the left SAGA loading the finished product i.e. aluminium ingots.

cool boys…

jungle life…

Pre-inspection loadberth SINGELGRACHT in Vila do Conde to load 18′500 tons bulk kaolin for UPM

I had to consult Wikipedia to learn how much bigger Brasil is than Holland. Answer 205 times.

We learned many things from Expedito, who was a very good guide besides his good knowledge of shipping and agencies in general. I could not avoid promising him a steep increase in his agency-fee reciprocal to the beginning of this year.

Tomorrow we will try to close our Brasilian circle, which will be achieved once we land in Natal.

Will be continued.

On our way we found many embedded thunderstorms, but Urs dealt with them by slaloming around them like the Swiss Olympic skieer Bernard Russi.

adios Iquitos…

…jungle, water, clouds…

playing with cb’s: thanks to the weather radar…

jungle…

The Airport chart showed the following welcome “Vultures in the vicinity of the airport”.

We had a very nice reception by Swiss Port’s Agent Artur Santos de Araújo.

Today we made an extremely nice trip on the Rio Negro. This river is already so hughe here in Manaus that I am unable to describe that to you very well. I guess the width here is at places already more than 1Nm with a tide of 2-3 knots. Hopefully the photo’s will give at an impression of our impressive views. Later the Rio Negro comes together with the Rio Salimoés forming the Amazone River.

Manaus, Brazil Rio Negro + Rio Solimoés= Amazonas

Resemblance of Newtown on Isle of Wight, UK

I saw a lot of shipping activities so I did alarm Spliethoff right away. My fingers tinckled already to take action and start a Spliethoff subsidiary, especially when I did see a vessel with a ramp called DG Colombia at anchor in the middle of the river. Much to my satisfaction Jan de Korte in Spliethoff gave me all kinds of reassuring message and informed me that mv DG Colombia was under arrest by numerous companies for ten years by now. I remember that our vessels carried plywood from Manaus to USA, but then I believed Manaus was a kind of Indian village (..). Now I discovered a city of more than 2M people.

Harry is again inspecting a few ships…

Maestra Atlantico

…since 10 years arrested…

A modern bridge has been built to connect both sides of the Rio Negro having cost some $400M. It has been opened in November this year when they allowed 90K people. If this is true I do hope someone calculated they must have weighed some 7.000 tons!! The bridge is still there 3,5 km long, 55 metres long, built on 74 columns.

the new Iranduba bridge in Manaus… opened on October 24, 2011

It is very hot here and humid. Yesterday we succeeded to keep Sophie from swimming in the Amazone, but only after our guide said her that there would be no pirhanjas at the end of the day, but … only some small Jacaré’s (alligators).

Tonight, believe it or not, we went to the famous Opera House, which has been transported in it’s entirety on a Shipping Line, giving a weekly service from Liverpool UK to Manaus. (Was it perhaps Blue Funnel line or KNSM?).

Tomorrow we will depart for Belem, Brasil.

bye bye Cuzco

…hello Iquitos

PC12 and Fokker F27

Our perfectly prepared, calculated and thoroughly discussed take-off at Cuzco, went alright. In spite of the very slow slope we used to get away at this altitude, we always stayed on the edge of not having a shaker warning. As a result of the high temperature we had to carefully watch the ITT, we stayed just below 40 torque, just under 820 degrees Celcius ITT.

Everything went alright, but not much would be needed to let it not go alright.

The Peruvian air controllers wanted us to make a considerable deviation by sending us via Lima -probably to avoid Brasilian territory- but skilfull negotiating by (again) Andy- made them finally agree to give us a direct route to Iquitos, via Brasilian airspace.

Once in Iquitos we were quickly reminded to the circumstances in Calcutta, India, we have seen last year. The people, the heat, the poverty and the filth everywhere.

we are in another world

Harry has inspected a new ship…

loading milk from Lima

…the banana market

My link to Iquitos was only an imaginary one, though comparable to my link with Kiribati: some 30 years ago I tried to fix one of our Japanese newbuildings from Miho Yard from Yokohama to Iquitos and it took me ages to find how this 6.000 tonner (I believe it was mv Lauriergracht) could go up all the way the Amazone river to Iquitos. I planned to go to Iquitos if this deal would have come through. My findings showed a one way passage time on the Amazone River of 14 days with pilotage cost of $ 20K. Mind you this was 30 years ago with a USD rate of exchange of probably NLG 3,60 [Gerard Treur jij kan vast die koers wel boven water toveren van ABN of Amro Bank, just for the fun of it].

Now I have seen the port(s) of Iquitos and I do hope that these photo’s give you the picture as we have seen it. Just the Middle Ages.

We found the people extremely friendly. The poverty seems not to make them unhappy. Another comparable aspect of their life with the people in Calcutta.

We survived a one hour trip in a three person Honda Riksha.

Then we found big festivities in front of our hotel. Well we never had to complain about lack of sleep so one night without, did not throw us off too much.

Tomorrow the next leg to Manaus, Brasil.

MACHU PICCHU

special guest…