Kenyan cutter built by hand
Di Beach recalls a five-year adventure through the 1960s in her Kenyan-built gaff cutter, with no engine and two new family arrivals
Our 42ft gaff cutter Mjojo bucked and slammed into nasty, steep waves caused by wind-againsttide, as we short-tacked through the narrow channel between Lamu and the Indian Ocean.
It was Mjojo’s maiden voyage. The mood was tense. Rod – captain and my husband – was totally focused on sailing this newly-built vessel through the most difficult waters she would experience. You’ll no doubt be asking why we didn’t use the engine? We didn’t have one... Rod’s philosophy was that if you didn’t have an engine you didn’t get yourself into a position where you needed one.
Our baby daughter, Jojo, born 18 months before in Kampala, Uganda, slept peacefully in her little bunk in the after cabin. I was petrified, strangely staggered by what I’d let myself in for. Clinging desperately to the nearest piece of boat, I wondered how it had come to pass that a hitherto dedicated landlubber found herself in this ridiculous situation.
Since our paths had crossed on the island of Alderney, I had known Rod lived to sail, but I never thought he would go this far. Messing about in the English Channel in an open 22ft Southend beach boat was tame compared to this nightmarish scene. When we met he had already signed a contract to join a team of junior architects in Kampala and it seemed inevitable that I would go too. My parents tried to stop me – I took them to court to get permission to
marry Rod – and right now, sailing from Lamu, I wished they’d succeeded.
But I won the case. I left England on a one-way ticket to join Rod in a tropical paradise. It was only when the end of his tour was looming that he had the brilliant idea of sailing home instead of flying like any normal person. Two friends, Colin and David, were persuaded to come and even I, mother of a small baby, joined the discussions enthusiastically, never for a moment believing that I would be standing now on this heaving deck, soaked to the skin and frozen in terror.
Boatbuilding backwater
The search for a boat was hopeless in landlocked Uganda but when a friend returned from Mombasa with news of beautiful boats, all with Lamu on their stern, we discovered the Venice of Africa.
It was to that remote and exotic Moslem island in the north of Kenya that we moved to build a boat with the local master dhow builders. Rod designed a boat blending their heavy traditional construction methods with his memories of boomless fishing bawleys from Essex.
We rented a house on the Lamu waterfront, hired a servant, contracted with a master boatbuilder, Fundi Musli, and work began on the hull – though it didn’t all happen quite as quickly as that sentence implies as you’ll probably appreciate.
All the timbers, keel, stem, sternpost, ribs, knees, were laboriously gathered from the hardwood forests on the mainland. Fundi Musli chose the branches he wanted and the trees were cut down; wasteful but it was the way it was done.
The heavy logs were transported back to Lamu in a small lateen-rigged boat and
‘The locals thought we were mad, which of course we were’
dumped in the shallows where they awaited their turn to be worked on. There was no electricity on this island at the time so the principal tool of these expert craftsmen was the adze which they manipulated with incredible dexterity, using it for roughly cleaning the logs of wood as well as for smoothly planing the finished hull.
Rod drew up detailed plans but they were incomprehensible to these craftsmen who worked with traditional designs that were in their hearts and hands. He resolved the problem by making a 3D model out of cement and egg-white to show them what he wanted.
It was different in every way to their traditional coastal trading vessels designed to take the mud, lateen-rigged for the predictable monsoon winds, and low freeboard. Our boat was headed for the open oceans where a deep keel and a lofty versatile rig were essential. The locals thought we were mad, which of course we were, and would shake their heads in despair as they saw the hull developing.
Rod had decided early on that his dream boat should have a cutter rig similar to the bawleys he’d seen around the Essex waters: boomless gaff main hooped to the mast with three brails for rapid furling and a lofty topsail above. The gaff was lowered when we wanted to reef or in port. Three headsails, two on a long bowsprit, completed the traditional design.
It was fortunate that one of his uncles in Southend was a sailmaker so he sent off the plans by post. There was plenty of time for Stan to make them and ship them out to Africa. What is surprising in retrospect is that they fitted perfectly!
Every step of the way was a learning process for us and for them. How Fundi Musli and Rod communicated without a common language was hard to fathom but, with gestures, repetition, and consultation of the model and drawings, everything went according to plan.
The planking arrived from a sawmill in Mombasa and, when it came time for it to be fitted onto the gash timber ribs that had been assembled with the keel, stern and stem posts, we wondered how they’d shape them. The simple and effective method involved fire, a slotted pole, and a cleft stick. As the shape of our hull was so very different from the traditional design, Fundi Musli messed up the first plank but after that he had his eye in and each plank was perfectly crafted.
Taxing launch
The launching of the hull was cause for anxiety. The usual way to launch was for the whole town to turn out and drag the boat into the water but, as we had fibreglassed below the waterline as a defence against toredo worm, it was feared damage would be done to it thus defeating the object.
When the District Commissioner became aware of the problem, he generously offered the only motor vehicle on the island, the official Land Rover, to help. But sadly for the vehicle and the DC it was not up to the job and the clutch burned out. The Kenya navy, whose officers had been giving me celestial navigation lessons, offered to pull the hull from their anchored boat. However, Rod was concerned that it would be impossible to control the process using such a powerful vessel. Next to be tried was akin to the traditional pulling method by a multitude of villagers orchestrated by the naval officers – but all to no avail.
It was beginning to seem impossible when an Indian friend, a veritable hoarder who had several cavernous warehouses where he kept all his stuff, offered the solution – a chain block. Rod was thrilled. The progress would be slow and controlled. It just took a long time. Four whole days of hand over hand over hand pulling the block which had to be anchored further out every day and the working time got shorter, restricted by the depth of water and the state of the tide.
‘The launching of the hull was cause for anxiety’
When she was finally close enough to the water that the next high tide would reach the bows, the official launching ceremony took place. It involved the ritual slaughter of a goat, its blood mingling with the rising water after which the goat was ceremoniously cooked and eaten. By the men. As a woman I was excluded from all the action and relegated to observer status only. I dared on one occasion to help dig holes in the mud, but Rod was severely reprimanded, and I was relieved of my spade.
The hull was in the water but unstable without ballast. Pigs of iron were en route from Mombasa but had not yet arrived. Yet again, as on so many previous occasions, our Indian collector friend came to our rescue with a seemingly endless supply of beautiful carved millstones, which were loaded, haphazardly into the hull as temporary ballast.
Every aspect of the boat’s construction and equipping required incredible ingenuity but we were young and still endowed with the superpower of youth. We’d spend hours discussing the next step, exploring innovative ways to resolve problems.
Stepping the mast is a prime example. Without a crane, how do you even begin to get a 60ft mast from horizontal on the ground to vertical in the hull? It took three days to accomplish what a modern shipyard could do in hours. But we had plenty of time. Or so we thought.
Next task was the decking. The local boats were undecked with just a matting to pull over whatever cargo they were carrying in the hold. From somewhere Fundi Musli had in his mind something he called an ‘English deck’ and he wanted to build it. We were impressed and he set to work. But sadly it was not as easy as it seemed to create the planks sweeping artistically from bow to stern following the shape of the boat. It was a mess. But as Rod had decided to fibreglass the deck as well as the hull, it was fortuitous. Had the beautiful English deck materialised it would have been a hard decision to cover it up.
When it came time to build the interior accommodation, Rod, Colin, and David took over. The locals had no clue about bunks or bulkheads, galley or chart table. They had no need for any of those modern inventions.
By now, we were beginning to call the boat Mjojo – the Swahili nickname the locals used for all of us, derived from my daughter's nickname Jojo. We towed her to anchor just off our house, and the commute became even easier. We began to think about supplies, particularly food, and at last I could play a useful role.
Using Eric Hiscock’s invaluable book about equipping a boat for a long voyage, I was able to calculate quantities of basic
foods. There was little available in Lamu. Rice was plentiful as were mangoes so we took lots of them and our provisions were supplemented by Colin’s purchases in Mombasa and transported back on the Bonanza, the local coastal trading boat that arrived once a week.
Everything came together: we had Admiralty charts, a sextant and navigation tables, as well as receiver radio for time checks, and a crew of four plus a baby. The skipper, though untried, was confident.
Tearful farewell
There was a rush to leave as the monsoon was running out and we had to get out of the channel before it changed or we’d be stuck for another season. Money had run out too but that seemed less of a problem in those halcyon days without bills to pay.
We bid sad farewell to Fundi Musli and the many other friends we’d made during our year on this remote paradise where the Islamic people had welcomed us and accepted us despite our strange ways.
We left Fundi Musli standing on the quay, tears rolling down his weather-beaten face, and went to sea, heading for the Seychelles, a thousand miles to the east.
The channel from Lamu bay was narrow with sandbanks on either side. The wind was against us, the strong tide with us. The waves were short and steep. The movement of the boat was unbelievable as she bucked from one horrible mountain to the next. I was terrified. I think I’ve already said that but it bears repeating. I have no shame in admitting that I wanted off but of course it was impossible.
Once out of the channel the chop turned into a rolling swell. A quick look below revealed the devastation of the first shakedown. Chaos reigned: despite our best efforts, nothing had been secured sufficiently, the bilges were awash, books had been dislodged and landed in water, which was coming from somewhere yet to be divined. Leaving Rod to sail the boat, David, Colin, and I went below to try to clear up, pump out, and establish some order despite the nausea that affected us all.
Rod’s plan was to get away from the land as quickly as possible, heave-to when we had sea room, and assess the damage. The chainplates turned out to be the source of the leak. While Rod did some emergency caulking, Colin took to the galley and made a wonderful hot meal and baked some bread in the funny little oven that sat on top of the primus stove. I gathered up my books and clothing that had escaped from their too fragile fastening, and rescued my sewing machine from the bilges. I had to put aside my fears and do what had to be done, taking my turn to pump out.
The first passage of 1,000 miles to Port Victoria, Seychelles, took fifteen days. We worked on an average of a hundred miles a day, taking turns to cook, and figuring out what to do with corned beef. Our daughter took to the sailing life like a proverbial water baby. She had never had many toys and the endless supply of ocean provided constant entertainment.
Cautious sailing
It was a reasonable passage considering we’d lost time with fluky weather that had us roused from sleep several times a night to reef or unreef. In those early days Rod was more cautious while he learned what this untried boat was capable of.
Due to the closing of the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean was a lonely place but, about half way across, a ship seemed to alter course to come and take a closer
‘The chainplates turned out to be the source of the leak’
look at us. We assumed they were trying to communicate with us, which was impossible. Their radio calls would have gone unanswered as we had no radio. In the end they found a loudhailer and asked us if we were OK. How could we respond to this kindness? Somebody had the idea of painting in large letters on a sheet: ‘All OK. Position please?’ They shouted back their calculation of our position, which varied by only one mile from ours. This was a thrilling moment to realise that we novice navigators were finding our way adequately using only shots of the sun.
For five years we sailed over 20,000 miles, visiting remote islands in the Indian Ocean such as Aldabra and Cosmoledos, scary places like the Comores where we were taken for pirates and told to leave, cosmopolitan cities such as Lourenço Marques and Cape Town where our raggedy clothes prohibited us from accepting invitations into high society. Our second daughter was born in Durban so then we had two water babies to entertain us and the not inconsiderable audiences we attracted wherever we landed. They were an enormous help with recalcitrant officials who became oblivious to paperwork once Jojo and Lulu smiled at them.
After the first passage to Port Victoria in the Seychelles we had settled into a routine and were on our way to becoming a finely tuned team adept at manoeuvring this magnificent boat even in the tightest of corners. She was low on technology with no engine, electronics, or winches but high on exotic elegance
One of the tightest corners occurred when entering Recife, Brazil. With light winds and ebbing tide, all sails were set as we searched the narrow shipway for evidence of a small boat harbour. When a forest of masts appeared above the seawall we put Mjojo to enter the narrow entrance, only to realise with horror and too late that the harbour was miniscule and we were heading for the inner wall and certain disaster.
We followed Rod’s shouted orders: “Down topsail! Brail main! Let go all sheets, drop the anchor. Quick as you like.”
Sails crashed down, the anchor flew over the side, someone yelled ‘take a turn’ as the cable whipped out. Someone did. The anchor bit into the mud, thankfully. Mjojo bucked violently, shuddered and stopped, just feet away from the sea wall. A boisterous cheer went up from the quay. Glancing up in surprise, we saw an elegant clubhouse with a group of chic be-blazored people raising their cocktails in salute. Well done, Captain. What style!
I didn’t mean to go to sea but am glad I did. Of course I was terrified on many occasions, especially with one then two active and fearless babies to run around after. I loved the adventure of it all, the sense of freedom, and the wondrous places we visited that no longer exist in such pristine condition.