WILD RIDE

KIBOKO 4 IS A PERFORMANCE CRUISER THAT REWARDS WHATEVER THE CONDITIONS, AS TOBY HODGES DISCOVERS OFF CAPE TOWN

- TOBY HODGES

When it’s on, it’s on. There’s no delaying showtime. Exactly 20 hours after leaving my UK home, while still hopelessly trying to rub the jetlag out of my eyes like an overtired infant, we were docking out of Cape Town and I was handed the keys to this souped-up super-cruiser. This was better than any caffeine hit.

The opportunity to sail a Southern Wind from its South African yard is one I'd craved for many years, but would a quick sea trial of the new award-winning SW108 during its commissioning phase, and before the yacht was even handed over to its owner, actually be possible? More than that, how about a sail trial that allows you to move through the gears in response to the changing conditions, get fully powered up and steer this brand new yacht pedal to the floor at late teen speeds?

Yes, in Cape Town, it seems it is!

The photos paint the scene well, but try also to picture being aboard. The feeling of helming this near 80-tonne beauty as it smoked along, planing offwind under the auspicious watch of Table Mountain, is formidable, and one I shan't forget.

As someone who has spent his life in or on the water or plotting how to do so next, I have a heightened respect for any aqua-based activity around the ‘Cape of storms.’ It’s wild. Indeed, later that evening, and for the following 48 hours of my visit, the wind swung offshore and really howled. Watching the swell breaking off the trendy beachfront of Camps Bay, I witnessed with awe as the merciless Cape Doctor rifled down the mountainous backdrop, ripping through the wave crests, while tourists struggled to hold their phones still enough to get their Insta sunset shots.