The ultimate dream of every sailor is to make an ocean passage atleast once in lifetime.  When Jehangir Jehangir (“JJ”) got the idea of doing something like that all he had at his disposal was Jaeger, a 21’ Seabird.  For a Seabird the Arabian Sea was as good as an ocean for it has no cabin nor even a roof or a bunk, and after JJ had a glimpse of Muscat some two years ago, he began toying with the idea of sailing there.  The sailors who were sold on the idea initially were Adi Tarapore, Sheri Bamboat and the Late Col. Tim Divecha.  Hakim Sabir and myself were the next to join the team and Raman Narayan the last who replace Col. Divecha whose sad demise was very untimely.  The final team was as follows:-

The following organizations / persons part-sponsored us:-

1)        AIR INDIA

2)        GOODLASS NEROLAC

3)        CIBA GEIGY

4)        Dr. N.P. Tolani

5)        Mr. J N. Godrej

6)        Mr. K. V.Mariwala

A voyage of a thousand miles begins with a single  step………..

The initial discussions and planning began last May, that meant over six months of preparation.  There were many hurdles and obstacles, two main ones being finding the second boat and obtaining the visas to Muscat.

 Mr. Kishore Mariwala was most generous in lending us his sturdy boat “SANDPIPER” – a most magnamanous gesture, for a voyage so long and hard on a boat.  The visas were finally got through the efforts of Mr. Jamshyd Godrej. The business of preparing the boats, fitting out, planning where to store what and how much was great fun and most enjoyable and now life seems rather dull without having so much to do, plan and look forward to.  We studied navigation using a sextant on our own and even went on a small rehearsal run to see how the equipment worked and how the boats behaved with that much of a load.

“CRUISING IS TO SAILING AS FEASTING IS TO EATING” – the more elaborate the planning and preparation the better is the final and result, and it sure paid off in our case.

Finally on the 7^th of February 1986, the expedition got underway.  “SANDPIPER” and “JAEGER” slipped moorings and sailed out of the harbour accompanied by an escort from the Colaba Sailing Club, RBYC and BSA of Lightnings, Lasers, Enterprises and Seabirds.

For the first eight days we had mainly light to moderate head winds and were beating most of the time.  Our plan was to sail north initially, to skirt Bombay High, head towards Diu and then straight across to Muscat.  On the ninth day we ran into unimaginable flat calms.  The ocean was like a sheet of glass, not a ripple for miles on end.  This went on for three days and nights.  At night every star was reflected in the water.  The phospheresence was too beautiful for words – it would light up our sails and faces.  We had enough fuel and we motored across for three days.

On the tenth day we began to get a following wind and made good ground with our spinnakers flying.  The next day things began hotting-up.  The wind picked up and the seas began building up.  The sky was overcast and black clouds flew in low overhead.  We poured the hot soup, just cooked, overboard before the rain and 30 knot winds lashed us for an hour or so tossing us wildly on a raging sea.  We sailed through on double reefed main sails.  By evening it was peaceful again and we had to use our engines at night.

The next day we had fair weather again.  We made contact with an Italian tanker and confirmed our position, we had only 250 miles to go.  That night the wind and sea began building up once more.  Black clouds were racing past us all night.  We brought down our mainsails and carried on only on our jibs.  By morning the wind had swung around 180° and we were facing head winds.  The horizon in the direction of Muscat was full of black clouds.  This was day 13.  Around mid-day menacing black clouds came hurtling  towards us from the direction of Muscat.  The storm hit us in all it’s fury.  We brought down our jibs too and turned our boats around, and ran with the storm on bare poles.  The wave height was atleast 30’ and wind around 35 knots.  We had used up most of our water, fuel and provisions so were quite light and the Seabirds behaved perfectly, riding each wave.  The rain lashed us for over an hour. We were continuously bailing out the rain and the sea water which kept pouring in, to keep us afloat, a back breaking job which we all shared.

“SANDPIPER” had more windage (because of our canopy) than “JAEGER” and began moving away so the boats were soon out of sight of each other.  During the storm a massive tanker approached us and we fired our flares to warn her of us and then we made radio contact to make sure she had seen us.  By evening the storm abated and were able to hoist jibs and search each other out. But by then our VHF radios were dead and there was no way make contact with each other. We sailed on the bearing when we had last sighted JAEGER and thank God we did find her bobbing in the distance.  That night we had a little peace but next morning it was blowing like crazy again. 

Land Ho !  We were 60 miles south of Muscat and sighted land at the crack of dawn and was it a comforting sight to see the Oman coastline and hills which looked magnificient.  We were thrilled to see land again.  But our trials were by no means over.  We had 30 knot head winds again and what the Arabs call the deadly “Shamal”, funneling onto us thru the famous “Devil’s Gap”.  We tried to hoist our mains, reefed and beat up the coast but we were  just blown over.  The seas were massive, we had to keep an eye on every single oncoming wave to make sure we climbed it and not get swamped, and our hands were giving way struggling with the tiller and main sheet.  Then as discretion proved the better part than valour, we sailed on jibs alone, but our tacking angle was some 180° and it was impossible to make ground north.  Finally in the afternoon, we gave up the idea of beating up and decided to sail down the coast and seek shelter till the “Shamal” blew it’s self out.  There were only two places marked in the Pilot where there was some shelter from a north westerly.  We managed to find one of them and sailed towards the spit.  Hordes of villagers came out of their houses waving us and running down the beach guiding us to a cove where there was shelter.  We were sure relieved to anchor there after four days of rough weather and fourteen days at sea.

The next morning saw us on calm weather without an ounce of wind.  We could not believe our eyes.  It looked like a different world.  We pulled our engines to life and raced up the coast and were in Muscat by 2100.  We anchored in Mina Qaboos and went ashore only next morning.  We had quite a hero’s welcome in Muscat.  We were helped a great deal by Oman Fisheries and Genetco who sponsored our trip back.  We spent five very relaxed days before the loading up began again.

THE RETURN

Adi Tarapore and Hakim Sabir dropped out and Rajeev Parab joined us in Muscat for the trip back.  The voyage was comparatively uneventful.  We did wonder at our luck when we had head winds again while sailing out and then absolute flat calms for four days as we cut across on engines.  Then our fortunes changed and we got fresh following winds on which we hoisted spinnakers and raced across the Arabian sea.  If the wind dropped, we would put on our engines to make time and recharge our batteries.  We had so much wind suddenly that it was a problem to charge our batteries – no opportunity to put on engine.  We began covering 130 miles a day.  We hit Bombay High on the seventh day and that confirmed our course.  The next morning of the eighth day we had the high-rise buildings of Bombay and then Prongs Reef smack on our bows.  By afternoon we were back home at our moorings.  The return voyage took half the number of days with just one freak wave that came over and drenched us.    A very peaceful trip indeed. 

To sum-up, I would just like to say hats-off to Mr. Morgan Giles who designed the Seabird and I wish he was there to see us doing an open sea crossing. Our successful voyage was mainly because we took great trouble in the boat preparation and planning, we carried sufficient spare rigging which we used as soon as we noticed any deterioration on the original and we were able to work as a team knowing our limits and also the boat’s. We did not take any undue risks and safety was of paramount importance. 

But, for the time factor at these trips take so long, I am sure all of us would do something like this again.

An open sea crossing has a charm of its own, there are moments of pleasure and pain, boredom and excitement, humility and triumph, terror and tranquility, and it goes on and on, one experiences after another and you come out a much better and stronger person.

( Cyrus Heerjee )

30^th April 1986