JaJapami

Kochi, Kerala and other Indian treasures
On the way around the world, from Asia to the Red Sea, only a few sailing boats make the choice to stop in India. Jajapami stayed for four weeks in Kochi and got unexpectedly a lot of boat jobs done!
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Gilles Ruffet
Publié le 15/05/2024
Par Gilles Ruffet
Numéro : 196
Parution : Jul. / Aug. 2024
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Multihulls World #196
Who: Jana, Jan-Dirk, Paul, Michel
Where: Kochi, India
Multihull: Saba 50, electric powered
Blog: jajapami.blog
In every new country, in new places, you first have to orient yourself. Then, of course, provisioning and boat repairs are always more important than a dentist checkup and before we even could make an appointment, we have to move on for some reason. In Kochi we achieved much more than the dentist and optometrist, but we can highly recommend getting it done here! We had always hoped to have new deck cushions made here but weren’t sure if the right material would be available. There was no water-permeable outdoor foam but cover material of the best quality. We could only throw away the cushions on the upper deck, which had been pulverized by the sun, but with a bit of puzzle-solving, there is now new ‘normal’ foam in the protected cockpit and above, in new covers, the still well-preserved, water-permeable foam from the lower cockpit cushions. The effect is awesome! JaJapami looks great again and almost like new! By that time a sailmaker had become extremely important as well. Both large light wind sails had broken in the last six months, and it was clear that we would urgently need them for our last big ocean passage through the Indian Ocean. Now the sailing scene in India is only extremely rudimentary. There is just this one marina in the entire country and no services specifically for sailors in the surrounding area. Nevertheless, after extensive research, JD was able to find a renowned sailmaker in Mumbai to whom we could send our sails. Sensibly, he asked to wash off all the salt before sending it. This was no small action! The Wingaker has 180 and the Gennaker 150 square meters. You first have to be able to spread it out somewhere and then have a water connection nearby! In the end everything worked out well and both sails are clean, repaired, and ready for use again. Excellent! We also got plexiglass work done, the dinghy outboard completely serviced, and a team of divers thoroughly cleaned our hull before we left. All at very fair prices. Perfect. For the next leg crew search was very time-consuming! Anyone looking for opportunities is unlikely to go to India and a passage with threatening Somali pirates and aggressive Houthis is not for everyone either. So we were worried for quite some time whether we would even find anyone or whether we would have to do it alone. Of course that would have been possible, but tiring and at the expense of the boys, because we would just keep watch, sleep, cook and eat. For our last big passage, we always hoped for something different! Finally, we found Tomas, a Czech who lives in Taiwan. Saved! But still not optimal with three. I kept looking and looking... and then Amrutha and Sreenath appeared and fitted like a lid on the pot! The two live in Kochi and have been looking for a chance to sail on a yacht for a long time. They would have flown to Europe for an opportunity like this and now they suddenly found us on their doorstep! What a coincidence! So finally, we not only had three crew members with sailing licenses, but also an aspiring freighter captain, Sreenath, who had sailed through the Red Sea before. It couldn’t have ended in a better way. And I don’t even want to start talking about how handy it was to have Indian crew in India! Kochi was hot with a lot of mosquitoes, the marina had undoubtfully seen better days, but we would always choose it again as the perfect stopover before entering the Red Sea!
Tags : Postcards , Saba 50 , India

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MM233 - octobre-novembre 2025

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