Facts of the week: Gerry Hughes The last three weeks I wrote about Peter Hancock, Paul Thompson and Charl De Villiers. As I mentioned writing from the oldest date to the latest date. It should be Paul Martin this week but would like to skip it until I see him in person. I last saw him last year, spoke the whole afternoon but I didn’t write any notes on paper. I will see him soon and write fact on Paul Martin. So it is skipped. This week I am writing about Gerry Hughes. Gerry is the first deaf person to sail pass all five southernmost capes of the world - the Cape Agulhas (Also known as Cape of Good Hope to some people) in South Africa, the Cape Leeuwin in Western Australia, the South East Cape in Tasmania - Australia, South West Cape also in Tasmania - Australia (South West Cape lies about 64 km west and 8 km north of South East Cape) and the Cape Horn in Chile, South America. As the theory ‘AROUND’ was explained in last week’s post, Gerry is the SECOND deaf person to sail around the world after Charl De Villiers. Charl is the first deaf to sail around the world, however Gerry is the first deaf to sail pass all five southernmost capes of the world. Charl sailed 30 000 miles and Gerry sailed 32 000 miles Here is a summary of Gerry’s voyage: start to finish Gerry left Troon, Scotland on the 1 of September 2012, to start his eight month journey across the world as a singled-handed deaf sailor on his yacht Quest lll. At first Gerry wanted to conquer the title as the first deaf person to sail NON-STOP around the world passing all five capes. As he sailed south passing the equator, Gerry noticed that he was having trouble with Quest lll’s rudder. The auto-pilot on board also started playing up. With under pressure with thousands of Facebook and website fans that where following him, Gerry made a difficult decision to abandon the non-stop quest and head for Cape Town of South Africa. Gerry arrived Cape Town at night, a Cape Town yachtsman Ralph and a deaf yachtsman Douglas De Wet met Gerry and guided Quest lll into Cape Town harbour. Quest lll underwent for repairs for two weeks. Marine barnacle growths were found in the rudder mechanism. Then Gerry sailed for Australia; after half way between South Africa and Australia, Gerry faced another mishap in the Southern Ocean – his yacht capsized, rolled over 360 degrees flooding everything inside. He lost his laptops that contained navigation/ autopilot softwares and part of Quest lll’s rigging got damaged. Gerry was forced to make a second stop at Hobart, Tasmania for repairs. Two more new laptops were flown from Scotland to Tasmania. Then he sailed for Cape Horn, South America. He made a third stop at Falkland Island for supplies and sailed back to Troon, arrived on May 8, 2013. Before the passing of 5 capes, Gerry is also the first deaf person to part-take the Original Single-Handed Transatlantic Race, OSTAR in 2005 Gerry sailed off from Portsmouth in Quest II, but was forced to stop at Cork for repairs due to battery power problem. A few days later out in the Atlantic the battery power failed again, resulting is the loss of use of his navigation lights, generator, laptop and mobile phone. He continued, making use of an oil lantern. When he eventually reached USA waters he was able to ask directions from a passing speed-boat in fog weather. He reached Newport successfully when the fog had cleared. Correction on the fact found in Wikipedia: ‘Gerry Hughes is the first profoundly deaf man to sail single-handed across the Atlantic Ocean’. The fact is wrong. True facts are: The first deaf to sail across the Atlantic Ocean single handed is Peter Hancock in 1985. The second after Peter Hancock is Paul Thompson in 1993, however Paul is the first to sail in the southern hemisphere Atlantic. Gerry Hudges is the THIRD after Peter and Paul when speaking of Atlantic Ocean crossing. However Gerry is the first deaf person to part –take the world famous race OSTAR as a single-handed sailor in 2005. With exception of being single-handed, Paul Thompson is the first to part –take a trans- Atlantic race called ‘Cape to Rio’ race with two blind crew. The first disabled crew in the trans- Atlantic race There is another deaf person that sailed around the world. He is Terry Witzansky of Denmark. Hardly anything is known about his story. Nothing such as dates or places is found on the internet. Does anybody know of a story of Terry? Photo attached is Facebook shared. Gerry Hughes is in red. Another deaf yachtman (in orange/ black) is Douglas De Wet. His first stop in Cape Town, South Africa.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 12:15:21 +0000
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