Mozambique Cyclone Idai – Sailing towards a storm, a little earlier than planned, during cyclone season…
Late April, May and June is the right time to sail this coast….We left mid March because of an extraordinary weather window which would carry us the first 1000 miles downwind, instead of upwind…
Was it 100% safe? NO.
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What do most people do when they see a cyclone on the Predictwind forecast with their Iridium GO or other ways of getting weather at sea? They stay safely in port, right? We saw an opportunity to go south with the north winds that would be north of the cyclone in the the Southern Hemisphere near Tanzania and Mozambique. It promised, if we played it just right, to carry us at least 1000 miles south with nice north winds!
So we grabbed our last veggies and eggs for 3 weeks, and set sail to South Africa, chasing Cyclone Idai down down the coast of Mozambique. We wanted to be close enough for the winds, but not too close!!! We later found out that this cyclone was the worst cyclone to ever hit Mozambique, killing thousands of people and demolishing even more homes. It’s a good thing we played it just right!
Even with that, we did get the remnants of it when we got a little too close…and we were socked with 50 knot winds for a bit, complete with driving rain and lots of thunder and lightening. Seas mounted fast. Luckily it was short lived.
Too bad it was too rough and most off all too dark, to film during the very worst of it, or I know Patrick would have been up filming it!
Hope you enjoy the video, give it a thumbs up, subscribe, and have a lovely Easter weekend! If you have any spare change, leave it in the TIP jar in the top right corner of the screen…thanks!
We studied the two following books/guides (click on either to see more detail), and utilized our Professional Subscription at Predictwind to help make these very important and intricate decisions about our trip south. Des Cason, a local Weather and anchorage guru and long time cruiser in this area also provided daily updates and advice as we moved south.
Sailing the African Coast – Dodging Storms…Zanzibar and Southward
Sailboat Brick House Prepares for a long, stormy passage down the coast of Africa, starting in Zanzibar. This is just the very beginning of the trip, and perhaps a harbinger for things to come? We arrive in Dar Es Salaam planning to spend several weeks, maybe even a month, enjoying ourselves in Tanzania, and getting the boat ready; provisioning, and fueling up for the long 1700 mile trip ahead of us to South Africa. Then we get some weather information and everything changes quickly!
We have been contemplating what to do, where to go in 2019, and though we enjoyed Madagascar…ecspecially the lemurs…we are wondering if it’s worth it to strategize to get back there from Tanzania, to then have to strategize and struggle to get back to the east coast of Africa…where we are now, in order to go south again.
Note: These are currents today…in December. It is quite likely they will be quite different in April/May.
So we will stay in Tanzania for about 3 more months, til the end of March, working our way south to the border by the end of March, at the latest. We will then depart for South Africa via Mozambique. But we won’t be departing Tanzania until we can do one more grand, excellent Safari here, for nearly a week, and then a big music festival!
Here is what I have learned about our trip south from Tanzania, along the coast of Mozambique, to South Africa.
This chart, part of this above article is particularly helpful: It is the 34.5 percent that I am most concerned about as those cyclones don’t have that much notice…The 28.8 percents…the most northern ones, will be earlier in the trip and we won’t leave safe harbor if we see one of those coming. The bottom two will be out of the way by the time we get that far south, and they have a much longer warning period.
I have looked closely at the cyclone patterns since 1972 on the climatology plugin on Open CPN. Again…May is in the clear…
During the passage, my Iridium GO and Predictwind Offshore will be activated again so that I can get updates every 12 hours to see the details of what may be stewing…This will be very important not just for early cyclone warning, ecspecially the ECMWF model, but also for the all important currents.
I have consulted with a local weather guru, Des Cason down in South Africa, and have talked to and will continue to talk to local sailors who have gone up and down this coast more than once or twice. There is some conflicting information here so I need to keep talking to them! It may be my understanding of what they are saying…or it may be a difference between months traveling. It could also be the effects of cocktails while the sun sets.
I have closely examined Jimmy Cornels Ocean Cruising Pilot Charts, and April looks very mildly risky while May looks to be totally in the clear.
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Some things are very clear to me after all of this research, and while they are still clear to me I thought I would document them for future sailors considering this route, straight down the Mozambique coast in the April, May or early June timeframe. I also invite anyone who has recently made this trip to comment below on your experiences, and with any advice. One can never hear too much about the next leg of one’s passage.
One MUST get down to Mtwara on the Tanzania/Mozambique border by mid March or risk going against wind and potentially current too to get around Capo Delgado just over the border in Mozambique. Des Cason and local sailors give conflicting reports in regards to where the current splits as it hits the Mozambique coasts. Pilot charts agree with the local sailors…Predictwind as we get closer to that time will give us a very good idea as to where it splits and if we will have a helping or hurting current as we found this Cape.
March is still a very strong chance of a cyclone, and though they don’t hit this coast often, it’s still a chance. So we won’t go much past the border until April. In April there is still a very minor chance of a cyclone, and it will NOT have much notice to us since the ones that hit in northern mozambique either develop just northeast of Madagascar, or develop near Mayotte…so we have to be prepared to sail fast one direction or the other to escape it. We need to stay as north as possible until mid to late April to be totally in the clear.
May is ideal. The Southeast winds have arrived, but they aren’t strong.the current down the Mozambique Channel is a helping Southerly flowing current. The Southwesterly busters…periods of very strong south and Southwest winds only happen a few times a month, unlike the traditional October/November Crossing from Madagascar, so you have much longer weather windows (which a slower boat like ours needs).
Late June until mid September is a bad idea since you can get Winter Storms, and who wants to sail when it’s cold anyways, never mind in a storm?
From the chart above, if we can get one third of the way down the coast, we have escaped the short notice cyclones late season cyclones, and then only have to watch carefully for the cyclones developing in the central Indian Ocean which end earlier.
We will get to the Tanzania/Mozambique border by middle of March and then hold up there for as long as possible. And then fly down the coast as fast as we can in late April/ early May. We have heard mixed reports about clearance in to Mozambique so we aren’t sure yet if we will spend time there. I guess it will depend on weather.
