"All systems down" - a sketchy arrival in Mindelo - Cape Verde

28-Nov-2022 15:00 Approaching Cape Verde

We had a good passage from Las Palmas to Cape Verde aboard S/V Nerio. With a crew of five plus the skipper, we sailed this ship, un-eventfully, 800 Nm (about 1,500 km) through some pretty stiff winds in five days.

Note that I use the term "ship". Nerio is not a "boat", she is a proper "ship": An aluminium racing cruiser of 72ft (22 meters), with its 30m tall carbon mast, 18 winches (two hydraulic and two driven by pedestrals), 4 meters draft, 40-odd tons of displacement, carbon-laminated mainsail,... She used to dominate off-shore regattas with a crew of 22. She is big, and by far the largest yacht I ever sailed on.

I met Nerio and Peter, her skipper, in Cartagena, a few months earlier, in October. Peter and I had been talking on taking Nerio transatlantic for over 16 months by then. And we stroke a deal then in Cartagena - somewhat induced by one-too-many strong gin-and-tonics (What can I say. The waitress liked me, so double-served the gin part): as I was looking to get the experience in "managing" a bigger yacht, Peter would allow me to be Nerio's first mate, preparing the passage plans, weather routing, pilotage, watch schedule, provisioning...

Kudos to the skipper, in giving me that opportunity and challenge which started early Nov when him and me (plus one more non-sailing crew) ferry'd Nerio from Gibraltar to Las Palmas, in a "4 hours on and 4 hours off" watch schedule between him and me -- the first time, I handled single watches on a big ship like this, raising and dropping sails as we negotiated the Gibraltar straights, one of the world's busiest cargo traffic areas and most complex current/tidal areas.

Where was I.. Oh, right, we were approaching Mindelo, Cape Verde... Mindelo is notorious in the yachting community: The marina is pretty tight, and the larger anchoring area on its Western side is dotted with unmarked wrecks, unlit mooring buoys, abandoned vessels, and sailing yachts at anchor. Most pilot books state "Do NOT approach this port and anchorage at night"...

28-Nov-2022 17:00 Approaching Mindelo

But I had been there a year ago, and stayed at anchor for about a week in front of the marina, so I knew the "lay-of-the-land" a bit.
So, as we approached Mindelo, inbetween the islands of Sao Vicente and Sao Antao, the skipper said: "Right, Peter, you have been here before, you take her in"....
In the days before, via the satphone, I had negotiated a slot in the marina, but I also knew that, by sunset, the marina staff would go home. And we had no time to waste.. Sunset was in about an hour or so..
As we came in the narrows between the islands Sao Vicente and Sao Antao, the sun was setting. We had planned to approach Mindelo on Sao Vicente, in day light, but -as it often goes-, planning is one thing, and the winds is another thing.
So,.. we were late. Mindelo is not a port you want to approach after sunset...

As we saw the lighthouse on the rock of "Djeu", in front of Mindelo approaching, I took over the boat. I briefed the crew of the approach plan. We took the sails down, and put all fenders out, we were ready.

As I had expected, the wind funneled between Sao Vicente and Sao Antao, but the prevailing wind direction (from the NE), really accelerated the wind. Talking about funneling, hey..? This was proper funneling. From a 15 knots wind, approaching the islands, the wind now increased to 20-25-30-35-OMG-40 knots, as we came inbetween the lighthouse on the Djeu rock and the island of Sao Vicente.

As I was standing at the helm, aft of the ship, with the main navigation and monitoring screens further forward in the main cockpit area, and the crew spread on deck, ready for the approach, I throttled the engine into neutral, and Nerio, was still speeding at 3-4 knots, just on the windage of its mast and running rigging. "Interesting,...", I thought, "I never sailed a yacht purely on its windage"...

And that is the moment, it started to get really "interesting"...

28-Nov-2022 18:00 All systems down..!

Just as we rounded the Djeu lighthouse, with all crew ready to pass the commercial port of Sao Vicente on our port side, in 40 kts of wind, I was looking at the different navigation screens and all of a sudden, all screens went blank......... (that is a lot of dots.. reflecting my "OMG" thoughts)...

I had no more chart plotter information, GPS or wind data nor depth reading. I was in command of a 72ft vessel, which was sailing on its windage in a 40kts wind, into a notoriously difficult anchorage, in the dark.., well.. blindly.

Peter, the skipper, tried to reboot the systems, which was a UNIX-based home-brew system, but in vain.... As the sun set behind the horizon and darkness fell, we were blind.

From memory, I recalled I could not take a wide berth to approach the marina, as there were too many half-sunk vessels on the Western side, and many yachts would be anchored there. So, as all crew was standing by on their positions ready for the approach, and the wind hooooowling in the rigging, I took out my iPhone. I had saved the track of the approach we did a year earlier, and I knew, if I followed that track, and stay East of the abandonned vessels, and a bigger fishing vessel (which never seems to move), called "Croix du Sud", we would be safe.

So out came my $800 iPhone, with its saved track,.. and we safely navigated past the commercial port, staying free of the anchored sailing vessels, and all other hazards, approaching the Mindelo marina. I called them on my VHF handheld, and with a torch, they gave a light signal, where to dock - next to the fuel dock -.

As we approached, I gave Nerio's reigns back to Peter, and he safely docked Nerio, to be followed by abundant shrimps dinner, spiced up with local beers.

How a $800 iPhone saved the day, hey?

PS: After some debugging, we found that the navigation systems crashed as the buffer files of the UNIX navigation systems filled up the hard disk, crashing the whole system. A problem which we cured in 1 minute, once identified, by putting in a batch routine to flush all buffers every hour - for the nerds amongst you -.