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roam2 · Joined: 22 Feb 2009 Posts: 32

Please find below the notes from Davina & Antony of sy Divanty who met up with Lo Brust in Alanya this week. Lo runs the Vasco da Gama Rally between Turkey and India.

Davina and Antony; thank you for sharing your research with us,
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From: Antony & Davina Hellewell

Subject: Fourth Vasco da Gama Yacht Rally

We are interested in joining the fourth Vasco da Gama Rally leaving from Turkey in October 2009 and arriving in India in April 2010 and have been to Alanya to speak to the organiser and leader of the rally, Mr Lo Brust (on his yacht Mistral) who has just returned from India with the third Vasco da Gama Rally. He has just sent all the information from this rally to his new web master and told us that his website will be up-dated by next week, so we would advise everyone to go to the site and read all his reports.

The journey to Alanya is very scenic if you take the coast road and the marina there is nearing completion. The marina will be very good when it is finished as it is being managed by Hassan who is well known in Turkey for his work at different marinas and he asured us that the marina will be ready for the start of the rally.

We were very impressed with Lo and found him extremley informative in answering all our questions. We also spoke to yachties who had just done the third rally with Lo and all spoke very highly of him.

One of our first concerns was all the reports on pirates in the gulf of Aden and what his plans were for this. We talked to him about the MSCHO operations and the corridor they recommend yachts to use. He told us that despite advice from his conversation with David Bankcroft ( Commander of Nato Naval Fleet in Bahrain) to use this corridor he will continue to operate the rally by sailing close to the Yemen coast. He has had conversations with the General of the Yemeni Coastguard who have told Lo that as long as the rally sails 5 - 10 miles from the Yemen Coast, the general will give details of the rally's passage to all coast stations who can respond to a yacht in difficulty within half an hour. Lo told us he had operated all his rallies like this and had had no trouble. He has a method of sailing the yachts in a convoy formation and will continue with this method. He brought 25 yachts back with the third rally and at the moment has 20 signed up for the fourth. He will take no more than 30 yachts to India. He has done the journey 6 times now and 3 of those were single-handed.

One of our other questions was why did he take the rally at this time of year when all books ( eg Jimmy Cornell) suggest doing the trip during the summer and not the winter. He does not believe that the authors have actually made the journey themselves but are simply quoting the best time for winds and currents. Lo has sailed down the Red Sea in July and says that although it was mostly northerly winds he also had southerlies, the temperature was over 50'C and he had sandstorms for days. So of his 6 trips, only 1 was done in summer and he would never do it again and says that winter is the best time as the Red Sea is is perfect in winter with over 80% of the winds behind you, though he does say that you have to get used to the steep, short waves. He says that February is then a good time to exit Bab el Mendeb, once you have waited for a good weather window and does advise the rally when to exit - last time they anchored for a week opposite Asab and then motored out between the islands. Some yachts then sailed straight to Aden and others anchored in the first big anchorage off Yemen.

Not everything is finalised as yet but he told us that although no marina fees are incuded in the rally fee, he does negotiate deals for the yachts at the stopovers. For example, if it is a 1 week stop he will only expect to pay for 4 days, a 3 week stop he will only expect to pay for 2 weeks. He also says he will arrange for the prices to include water and electricity and free wifi.

On transiting the Suez Canal, he said that the rally would probably stay 6-7 days in Port Said as it was very interesting and the yachts were usually given a free dinner by the agent Felix; he would then stay about 1 week in the middle at Ismailia for excursions to the pyramids and that the marina has water, electricity and showers; Port Suez has pontoons with water and electricity and free wifi. He also said that he negotiates a special price for yachts transiting the canal.

On exiting the Suez Canal he plans to stay at Hurghada marina as it is in the middle of town and a good place to make excursions from. He says that there is not much at Port Ghalib but the water here is good though it costs about 5$ per 1,000 litres. He said there will be no internet in Eritrea, but he is hoping to have it in Sudan. He advises everyone to take at least 1,000 - 1,5000 US $ in small denominations as most fees have to be paid in dollars. He told us he also negotiates for deals on fuel and on the last trip fuel cost 80 cents per litre in Egypt and 70 cents in Sudan and Aden. He will dvise yachts when they should fill up, but always recommends Aden and Oman. He does not recommend taking on water in Sudan.

Once in India, he says that the anchorage at Mumbai is very safe - he left his boat there for 3 weeks. he says that you cannot take your dinghy ashore but must call for the free water taxi. It is posible to get good water from the water boat which visits the yachts.

He is still trying to get the pontoons back into Goa but has not done so to date and though it is still possible to call there it is not possible to leave your boat there at the moment.

The marina in Cochin should be finished by the end of the year and therefore should be operational for the rally. The pontoons are already there though not yet in situ and the marina buildings are started and hopefully there will be both water and electricity. He will be up-dating the website as he gets further information. He also told us that he has boat boys there whom he has known for over 10 years and are trustworthy to look after your boat if you decide to leave it there to tour India. For 500 rupees a month they will open your boat every day to check for damp and mould etc during the rainy season (June, July and August).

Finally he told us that if anyone had crew or friends joining them for over half of the rally they would be expected to pay a fee, but if crew join just for the Red Sea or just for the Indian Ocean there would be no charge but they would be expected to buy the Rally tee-shirts. Contrary to infrormation we had been given he said there was no problem with crew flying into Oman and then leaving by boat to India. Obviously they must have obtained their visas in England first.

His final words of advice were that you must thoroughly check your boat before embarking on this long journey of 4,500 miles and make sure that everything is in good working order. He would also strongly recommend having an AIS on board as he found his invaluable on the last rally. A satellite phone is also a good buy.

We would advise to keep checking Lo's website for any up-dates.

Hope this has been of some use.

Regards,

Antony and Davina Hellewell (s/y Divanty)