I have been lucky enough to have, at long last, acquired a Hobie 14 catamaran!

I have been looking in classified ads all over the place for a sailing dinghy (preferably a catamaran) that would fit my budget. But by the time I contacted the few owners who advertised their boats for sale, the boat would usually be sold already, or the sailor would have changed his/her mind and decided to take the boat off the market.

After a couple of months browsing classified adverts, I decided that I might have to take some kind of pre-emptive action. I contacted the yacht and sailing clubs in my general area, hoping that they might be able to point me in the right direction, but alas, this did not pan out either.

I decided to visit the clubs on sailing days, hoping that some members might know of a non-sailing Hobie I might offer to buy. The members at the George Lakes Yacht Club were especially helpful, but even they couldn't find a boat for me.

As a last ditched effort to find a vessel for The Captain, I set off one Sunday, visiting all the sailing clubs and marinas along the coast, from Mossel Bay to Knysna.

On Groenvlei near Sedgefield, at the boathouse of Pine Lake Marina www.grc-resorts.co.za, I got lucky! The Pine Lake Marina is not really a sailing club, but rather the water sports section of the holiday resort. But boat owners could bring their own dinghies to sail at Groenvlei.

Ollie, the boat master at the Pine Lake Marina, quickly made a few calls after hearing my quest. And he soon had a Hobie 14 owner on the line, who was looking to sell!

I made arrangements to view the boat, which was parked in a paddock on a farm somewhere between Hoekwil and Karatara. The Hobie was trailered and overgrown by grass. The trailer wasn't licensed, and some minor parts were missing or damaged, but at only R2 500 for a Hobie 14 Turbo AND a galvanised trailer, I knew that I had found my boat!

The owner was a young lady who had been sailing her Hobie 14, which her father had bought secondhand, since the age of 13. She stopped sailing when she left for England for a few years.

Shannon had to excuse herself a moment, because the emotion was welling in her eyes and she was about to burst into tears at the thought of never sailing her boat again. I used the time to carefully probe and evaluate the boat, and took the boat regardless of the mental anguish it might cause ;).

I brought a flatbed trailer along and strapped the boat and unlicensed trailer securely on top. It didn't seem to be an unstable load, because the boat and trailer weighed next to nothing. But I decided to be careful, rather than regretful, and used almost 60 metres of rope to tie the Hobie down.

I set off down the windy road through Hoekwil towards Wilderness, where the road meets up with the N2. I drove between 60 and 80 km/h without any problems. So, when the N2 turned into the double lane highway near George, I increased my speed to 100 km/h. This was a BIG mistake!

It seems as if the wind coming over the car and under the elevated trampoline, caused some lift - like on an aeroplane wing. The tramp would normally follow in the car's slipstream, but strapped on top of another trailer, it caused my load to become unstable!

The trailer started to sway harmlessly on the first downhill. The suspension on the flatbed trailer would normally be able to compensate and stabilise the load adequately, but the combination of two trailer suspensions on top of each other soon amplified the movement.

My new old Hobie was soon rocking violently, and threatening to overtake the car at any moment!

There wasn't much I could do. If I slammed on the breaks, the car and trailer would surely jack-knife. And if I stepped on the gas, to try and straighten her out, the trampoline would cause more lift, aggravating the rocking movement. So, I simply took my foot of the accelerator...

If I had been on an uphill, I believe that the situation would have stabilised. But on the downhill I found myself, the car and trailer did not slow down enough!

I was close to the bottom of the hill, and hoping to hit the uphill soon enough to slow the rocking Hobie down. But it did not come soon enough, and the trailer pushed and pulled the car this way and that, across the two lanes of the highway.

When the trailer threatened to push me off the tarmac, toward the right, I had to act quickly. I turned the steering wheel hard to the left, away from the oncoming traffic (we drive on the left hand side in South Africa), and slammed on the brakes.

The car turned back to where it had come from, and the trailer came swooping past. I counter steered, to keep from flipping over, and came to a stop with my car and new old Hobie 14 blocking BOTH lanes. Luckily the one car directly behind me realised that something BAD was about to happen, and slowed right down before the paw-paw hit the fan. (Maybe the dancing Hobie tipped them off?)

I have often wondered, after seeing skid marks that start out running parallel and end up crossing, how on earth the driver of the skidding car achieved that effect. Well, now I know!

With some luck, I was able to keep the engine running, and pulled off the road onto the concrete storm water slope, running parallel to the road, before more traffic came past. After a minute, breathing deeply and trying not to shake too much, I inspected the boat - No damage at all!

Hot tip:

When you secure your boat to a trailer, or your boat and trailer to another trailer, make a very, very good job of it!

I re-tied the straps and set off home, to Mossel Bay, at a VERY modest speed - thinking how lucky I had been finding my new old Hobie 14, and how lucky I was to have kept it.

Now all I have to do is sort out the rigging, and the rest should be plain sailing, right? Well, maybe...

P.S.

I hope you will forgive me for not taking pictures of the incident on the highway. I was somewhat shaken at the time.