Monday, 29th January 2007 at 9:31 pm

Zimbabwean navy at sea

It’s a catch-22 situation. Landlubber Zimbabwean with no sailing experience and minimal swimming skills wants to join a crew sailing a yacht from Cape Town to South America, and needs to find a boat willing to take him. But by definition, any boat willing to take said Zimbabwean on board as a crew member, is surely a boat you don’t want to be on in the first place…

…and so to the story of one Thomas Peacock, a Zimbabwean working in London, who decided life had something more to offer. Having found the Bruce Peru Project, an initiative which works to educate street children in Peru, he pestered enough boats in Cape Town until he found skipper Ines de Beer, who had a luxury catamaran to get to Tahiti via Panama. Several discussions later, and Petty Officer Peacock had become the third and final member of the ocean going crew.

They’re now out at sea, en route to South America; last word was from Namibia, where Peacock reported that 250 kilograms of necessities had been left behind. This after the cat had turned back after its first departure, having left the spinnaker behind (and discovered that the sat nav wasn’t working). There’s the better part of an ocean to cross, with one third of the crew never having negotiated anything more than a mild, sunlit Lake Kariba - if Thomas Peacock does make it to Tahiti, and on to the Bruce Peru Project, he’ll not only be helping to make a difference, he’ll also have quite a story to tell. Fair winds, then, Zimbabwean sailor.

Visit Thomas Peacock’s blog.