We left Reunion a little earlier than we expected, but with a good weather window looming to get around the infamously tricky Cap D’Ambre (above) at the northern tip of Madagascar, we decided to jump. Our pre-passage prep went smoothly and our checkout was just as fast as the check-in. By noon, we were on our way. We raised the main while we were still mostly in the lee of Reunion, but the protection quickly went away. As Brian pulled out the headsail, we had wind gusts to 28 and the waves were building. This was when he realized that the port winch was seized and wouldn’t spin. 

I’ll preface this all by saying we know better. Servicing the winches was one of those things on our to-do list, but it kept getting bumped by more pressing concerns and items that were actually broken. Now we were setting off on an 800 nm passage to Madagascar and the winch was broken. We realized we hadn’t used it since we were in Malaysia, as the prevailing winds across the Indian Ocean meant we’d been using the starboard winch exclusively—until now. The only option was to take it apart now and see if we could fix it. I headed back inshore to the lee of the island to get some protection from the wind and waves, while Brian started disassembling. We cleaned and greased parts as we dodged boats and tried to stay in the calm near shore without actually running aground. 

Thankfully, this fixed the problem, but as we reassembled the pieces, a plastic plate that had a small crack started disintegrating. We were able to get the winch back together and serviceable for the time being, but until the plate is replaced, it won’t be fully functioning. The irony is that we were docked in Reunion, steps away from a chandlery that is a Lewmar dealer and would’ve likely have had the part we needed. We could have headed back into shore and checked back into Reunion, but we would have missed our window and been there for at least another week. We decided to press on and know that we’d have to wait until we got to South Africa to fully fix it. 

We headed back out, now running almost three hours behind where we expected to be, with only a couple hours to go before sunset. We were most concerned about making it through the compression zone at the northern tip of Madagascar. Four days out from rounding and winds in that area were forecast to be in the low 30s with gusts to 40. The sooner we got there, the better it would be, but now we were behind. As we left the lee of Reunion behind (a second time), winds gusted to 36 knots and seas built to 10 feet—much more than forecast. The winch issue, our delay in leaving, and now tougher conditions than were forecast all led to us feeling a bit frazzled and with a touch of queasiness as we headed into our first night at sea. Then came the squalls. It was hard to get the right sail combination to deal with the dramatic changes to wind direction and velocity, as each storm pushed through, making our overall SOG slow. 

Despite the rough start to our passage, the conditions calmed as we headed further west and we had a blissful 36 hours of beautiful downwind sailing as we approached the coast of Madagascar. We remained anxious about the rounding of Cap D’Ambre. Our weather router continued to forecast winds up to 40 knots and as we approached the compression zone, we decided to drop the main before sunset and sail with the headsail only, our electric winch making it relatively easy for the person on watch to quickly adjust the amount of sail. As night fell, I watched the winds steadily climb—24, 26, 28—and then it stopped climbing. 

We were racing along at 7 to 8 knots with a half furled headsail. It was amazing! We never saw more than 29 knots and then as dawn broke, the seas flattened, the wind remained steady and we spent 12 hours having one of the most beautiful, epic sails we’ve ever had on this boat—still with just a headsail. Neither of us wanted to go off watch, happy to charge along at 10 knots, taking in the sights as we rounded the cape. Once we were in the lee of Madagascar, we had 12 more hours of motoring to get to our check-in at Nosy Be, where we anchored safely four-and-a-half days after leaving Reunion, greeted by a fleet of fishing dhows returning to port. We’ve officially finished our crossing from Asia to Africa!