Last week’s storm in Cape brought to mind wild seas of yore

“HALFWAY through July,” I wrote in my column on July 17, 2013, “we still await those blustery northwesters and heavy seas that characterise the ‘typical’ Cape winter.” I then related a reader’s account of his experience aboard the old coaster Voorloper during one of those wild July storms.

In the early days of June four years later, we can relate tales of last week’s really ferocious Cape storm. The sea was spectacularly rough, as witnessed by those who delight in watching wild seas along the Atlantic coast.

For a while, the harbour was closed to all inward vessels as the pilots could not board; unless delayed by wind, outward vessels sailed as the pilots could disembark in the breakwater’s lee. Spectators watched inward vessels rolling sharply as they crossed the course of the westerly swell, and outward ships battling into the huge seas.

I watched Holland-Afrika Lijn’s cargo-passenger ship Oranjefontein struggling out of Table Bay in heavy weather, I think on her last northbound voyage in May 1967. Following in her wake was one of Safmarine’s Global-class freighters, also taking water green over the fo’c’sle. Those images remain with me. Some bridge-cam YouTube videos reflect something of life aboard vessels in rough seas. Feelings range from violent seasickness and sheer terror to nonchalant recollections of previous encounters with bad weather.

“Remember that 17-metre swell we hit off…?” someone might say, eliciting groans from those suffering from mal-de-mer, or an enthusiastic response from a shipmate offering an even more vivid account of heavy weather. Under such conditions, the ship’s cook will battle to prepare meals, falling back to sandwiches and bottled water. Seasoned salts somehow manage to sleep, wedging themselves into their bunks by ramming spare blankets under the open side of the bunk and settling back against the bulkhead.

Thrown from their bunks by the ship’s violent movement, greenhorns take to the deck in their cabins, desperately hoping to catch even a brief shut-eye before their next watch. Sophisticated electronic meteorological instruments provide instantaneous readings and trends to a ship master who keeps a wary eye on sea conditions.

He will study synoptic weather maps, satellite images and shipping weather forecasts brought by advanced communication systems, while using every seamanship trick to avoid damage to the ship during storms at sea. Even an old mechanical barograph is of good use as its graph shows trends in air pressure, so crucial to determining weather in the South Atlantic or in the tropical cyclone areas.

Ship-routing to avoid typhoons (aka hurricanes or tropical cyclones) is essential as these weather systems pose a real threat to shipping, especially to heavy-lift ships carrying some remarkable cargoes like oil rigs, other ships or container gantry cranes.

Every vessel with deck cargo or a containership needs to avoid the full brunt of the violent seas associated with major cyclonic systems.

A young officer told me that, shortly before being called for harbour stations when the ship sailed, he was finishing a late supper in the duty mess after a long day of cargo work that included stowing umpteen bulldozers for South Africa. Clad in his weather jacket, the master, a tall, burly Welshman not known for loquaciousness, came into the mess. “Are those bulldozers lashed properly?” he asked. “Yes sir,” my friend responded.

“I hope so,” came the curt response, with its trace of a Welsh lilt. “There’s a typhoon somewhere out there,” he said, and tossed the latest synoptic chart on the table, before heading for the bridge. My friend paled. I needn’t have worried,” he told me later. “The old man kept us well away from the action.”