Team building: False bay sailing and a brand new spinnaker

spinnaker-3 Thursday the 13th August saw Media Vision South Africa undertake their first team sailing adventure. The team, comprising of captain AJ, first mate Zeke, skipper Brett and deckhands Lauren, David and Frances, took sail, equipped with nothing more than a couple of flimsy jackets on their backs and cold beers in their hands. Sandy decided to hold the fort by staying at the office and fielding calls from the slightly jealous UK office.

The weather was idyllic for a Cape winter’s day and we took off from Simonstown yacht club at a gentle pace eventually finding some light wind quite a way out at sea. The deckhands were roped in to take some of the slack and learnt some of the nautical lingo, such as ‘guy’ and ‘cleat’ in the process.

On nearing the False Bay lighthouse, Zeke prepared to open the brand spanking new spinnaker and make up some speed. The black spinnaker branded with the Media Vision logo was opened to general murmurs of approval and everyone took a turn to explore the bow and admire the spinnaker. team-sailing1

AJ directed Brett around the lighthouse and a lone seal was spotted making a quick getaway from the yacht and, not much later, one of the peninsula’s trademark penguins followed suit and paddled away from our fast approaching vessel. A whale spotting was hoped for but to no avail. However, the sea mammal no-show was more than made up for by the exquisite crimson sun which was setting over the Silvermine hills. sunset-silvermine-2

Nightfall set in and the only minor disaster was when deckhand David took over from Brett to steer for awhile and steered the boat neatly into a stationary buoy. But the buoy was quickly unhooked from the side of the boat and disaster averted.

The wind had died down a bit by this time and the yacht bobbed gently in the swell as the team soaked up the peace and quiet of the deserted bay and the pleasant evening weather. But the smoking engine was brought out again when Zeke concluded that we were possibly going backwards and Lauren started looking a little green around the gills. After docking, the team hopped regrettably off the faithful vessel with just a few cases of dock rock and promises to return for a longer sail.