Holed and Engineless, but He's a Circumnavigator
by Bliss Barber, Cape Times/Sail-World on 5 Dec 2007
Petr Muzik on his damaged Shoestring after return to Cape Town SW
It's triumph over disaster for a Cape Town sailor this week. After limping through the Indian Ocean with a leaking boat and a missing engine, Petr Muzik, 69, returned to Cape Town on Monday after a three-year circumnavigation of the world, leaving 32 countries and 29 500 miles of ocean in his wake.
Muzik navigated his slightly battered yacht, the Shoestring, to the conclusion of her journey on Monday morning at 9am when he arrived home at the Royal Cape Yacht Club after 1 100 days of sailing.
'She's just a little tired and in need of some repairs,' he said.
The boat had been damaged off the Chagos Archipelago, south of the Maldives, after strong winds grounded her on a coral reef, puncturing the bottom and costing her the engine.
The collision tore off part of the yacht's keel and the motor propeller, and three hours later the Shoestring was sinking and the floorboards were afloat.
'I dove off the side and covered the hole with foam. I managed to stop the leak, but I had to continue pumping (water) every three hours,' he said.
Muzik said he found a dagger board from an abandoned catamaran in the bush and fashioned it into a rudder for the boat. It was a 'miracle' that the motor had finally begun running again, he said.
With autopilot out of commission and minor leaks in the floor of the vessel, Muzik hand-steered the boat to Richards Bay, continuing through to Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, and then Cape Town.
His wife, May, said she wasn't surprised that her husband had finished the journey successfully.
'He's been sailing since he was nine; he knows the ocean,' she said.
Muzik said it was at the age of nine that he first dreamed of circumnavigating the world.
'It was only at 69 that I finally achieved my dream.'
He said he hoped to one day charter trips for locals and tourists.
Muzik leaves for his home in Port Owen on Tuesday, but is expected to return soon to begin repairs.
Contact Bliss Barber: bliss.barber@inl.co.za
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