Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter Twelve
Trucking Déjà vu to The Vaal Dam.
Learning to sail.
Embarrassing mistakes, wonderful friends.
Learning to sail had not come as easily as I imagined it would. As in building the boat, I un-
derestimated this complex art and all its finicky details. But, like anything else worthwhile
one sets out to learn, enthusiasm, passion, and patience are the main ingredients and, armed
with an abundance of these, Judi and I had thrown ourselves into the task.
Early one spring morning on the sun swept suburbs of 1970's Jo'burg, a large, blue truck
that was to transport the recently completed Déjà vu arrived with a thunderous roar waking
us all on the farm. The truck was parked alongside the boat, and we were to raise it up off
the ground with the aid of hydraulic jacks and drag her across on balks of heavy timbers to
the bed of the truck. Albert, our big, jovial, German friend, had promised to help us, and he
soon arrived with his big work truck with a powerful winch mounted on the front. He had
brought with him a vast array of wooden blocks of all sizes to pack under the boat's keels as
she was being raised up. Several hours of tense jacking, yelling, close calls, cups of tea, and
handfuls of grease on the timbers passed while we watched as Déjà vu was slowly but surely
dragged across to the truck bed: firstly the bow, then the stern, a bit at a time. Big Albert was
great, never wavering once; we had great confidence in him, and soon the boat was sitting
firmly on the truck. Big, long chains were carefully wrapped about her decks and secured
down onto the truck bed. The slack was cinched out with levers, and she was ready to roll!
We would leave early the following morning as it was a slow journey of over one hundred
miles to the Vaal Dam where she was to be launched. This large expanse of grey water lay
to the southwest of Johannesburg from where we had built her. The Vaal Dam was primarily
used to supply Johannesburg and the surrounding reef with water, but it was also a great
recreational lake with a couple of fairly large yacht clubs huddled on her sometimes muddy
banks. Sailing boats of all description were moored there. There were modern state-of-the-
art racers built of the latest, lightweight materials together with old-fashioned, home built
craft used purely for fun and weekend cruising and knocking about.
We decided to moor our boat at a professional boatbuilder's yard: Dick Manten Marina,
which was owned by a short, stocky, swarthy, no-nonsense Dutchman with a humorous
twinkle in his eye and a soft spot for all things feminine (and American too I couldn't help
noticing). Dick and his ample wife and three children lived on the waterfront in a big, double
storied home overlooking the large, three hundred square mile lake. Next to their house
was the big workshop where he and the boys would build their latest and highly acclaimed
