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T H E L A U N C H I N G
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August 2001 |
| The long dreamed project of having a classical schooner built, all made of wood, all by hand, following the traditional methods used by the tribes of South Sulawesi for many generations, finally has come true. After one and a half years of vicissitudes spent in a tropical beach full of saw-dust, with the sound of the mallets and the chisels giving shape to the vessel, finally it was decided that on the full moon of July, she was ready to be brought down to the sea, there where she belongs to. And so, her two-hundred tons of wood and steel started crawling painfully way down the beach, being pulled with the aid of pulley blocks by the entire team of workers that had participated in the construction of the boat. |
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| Yet without her masts up, with the keel leaning on greased wooden rollers and posts bolted into both sides as "skates", to avoid her falling on neither side, she began moving down to the shore, at an average speed of only a few meters per hour. This stressful launching lasted for a whole week, on which the workers pulled hard while the tide was low, resting when the seas were coming up. Finally, after this whole week, she was helped from the sea by a tow-boat that pulled her to the open water, her gorgeous silhouette finally floating free. As she cast anchors, the eastern monsoon quickly turned her around to face the beach where she was born. |
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Right after, during July, the rigging was set up. Seeing these enormous masts and gaffs rise challenging towards the blue skies, really made worth all the effort of having been several months searching for the right trees throughout the surrounding forests.. The following weeks, the finishing took place: sanding and sanding the wood is never enough, checking out the installations, preparing the engine for the sea-trial… Meanwhile, the whale sharks that were around this same beach last summer are now back, omen of the adventures Ondina is surely going to play. A few kilometres away, in Cape Bira -one of the starting points for the routes of SMY Ondina- the ever-present reef sharks, the turtles and the eventual manta ray keep on making enjoyable the dives of the very few fortunate passers-by that have chosen to dive this yet pretty unknown area, out of the most common tourist circuits. An area with an obvious potential for diving, that Ondina has chosen to be the scenery of her adventures, the promise of challenging trips as suggestive as her majestic presence, already outstanding against the beautiful warm sunsets in this peaceful beach at the Tropic of Capricorn. |
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