Still sailing the high seas at the age of 81

John Levin learnt to sail as a child growing up in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape, and he hasn’t stopped since. This 81-year-old has just completed a three-month voyage from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro (Rio), including a stop at the island of St Helena, with three inexperienced youngsters as his crew. He took a chance in taking them on, giving them the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I retired last year after 57 years in legal practice,” says Levin. “I have a small boat, a 34-footer (10m). I was at a bit of a loose end, and I decided it was time for another trip.” He left in September 2022, arriving in Brazil towards the end of October, where he spent the next month and a half cruising around Rio and the vicinity.

This isn’t Levin’s first sail along this well-known route. He has completed “pretty much all the sailing races along the South African coast”, including seven Cape to Rio races, a Cape Town to Lisbon race, two Durban to Mauritius events, and two Cape to St Helena races, winning the coveted Governor’s Cup in 2018, and the race in 2019. In 2003, he and a friend sailed around Africa. He has served as commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club of which he is president, as president of South African Sailing, and as chairperson of the Cape to Rio yacht race. He was chairperson of the organising committee of the 1993, 1996, and 2000 Cape to Rio races, and chairperson of the organising committee of the 2012/2013 St Helena race.

“I’ve been in situations with bad weather, and there have been times when I’ve been concerned,” he says, looking back on a lifetime on the ocean. “You can take steps to minimise risks, such as ensuring that the boat is totally seaworthy.”

Though Levin has sailed long distances alone, at this stage of his life, he wanted a team on board. Having a strong crew is vital, but on this front, Levin took a chance, and it paid off. “None of my usual crew could come, so I advertised for one.” He landed up recruiting two 19-year-olds and a 27-year-old diver and fisherman. He ensured they did the required courses, then trained them intensively for three weeks.

“Our route from Cape Town via St Helena Island to Rio followed the traditional trade-wind routes of old. The wind blows in certain fixed patterns. Going down wind is like riding a bicycle downhill – you don’t have to pedal,” he says.

“Being with others in a confined space has its moments, but I’ve never had major problems. I’ve seen boats at the end of a Cape to Rio race with one man chasing another looking like he wants to kill him. I’ve seen a race to St Helena with every crew member walking off and leaving the captain. A boat has to be disciplined to work properly, but you can’t have tyranny.”

On this recent trip, all went well. “We were cruising, not racing. The guys did a lot of fishing, so we ate a lot of fresh fish. If the fish was bigger than we could eat in one meal, we would let it go to live another day. We had no refrigeration besides a small cool box, so we had to be strict.

“My 27-year-old crewmate was a superb chef, and we ate some of the best meals I’ve had at sea. Cooking facilities are very primitive – just a two-burner gas stove, no oven. But you get by. I lived like that for year on a boat when we sailed around Africa.

“I was asked early on in my sailing career not to cook,” he quips. “We eat a lot of tinned food and pasta. Amazingly on this trip, our eggs lasted right across the ocean.”

They carry their water in five litre containers. “We calculate it on the basis of one litre per person per day. So we carried a lot of water. When I got this boat 34 years ago, I originally took out the tanks (used to store water) as you hear stories of things that can go wrong and people running out of water because it gets contaminated. In addition, you don’t see how much water you’re using. With five litre containers, you can monitor it carefully.”

He used to see a lot of sea life, but in the past 10 years or so, he has seen very little. Ironically, he’s “frightened of being in water”, so he doesn’t swim in the sea, but on this trip, his crewmates swam in the mid-Atlantic, in 5km of depth.

After setting out from Cape Town, they arrived 12 days later on St Helena Island and spent five days there. “It’s isolated, has about 4 000 people, and is one of the last British colonies. It’s the place where Napoleon was imprisoned and died, and where lots of Boer War prisoners died. It’s also a volcanic outcrop and has lots of sea life. It’s expensive, but well worth a visit.”

They stopped at a few other places, and the whole journey took 43 days, of which 27 were sailing days. “That means we travelled 4 332 nautical miles and averaged 160 miles [257km] a day. That’s faster than half the fleet in the recent Cape to Rio race. The winds were favourable, and everything went right.

“The trip was everything I hoped it would be and more,” says Levin. “The crew bonded, and it was a life-changing experience for my crewmates. A week later after landing in Rio, one crew member was invited to join a yacht heading to Antarctica. So it was a great opportunity.”

As his experience shows, “sailing is a sport you can do from the age of five to 81, and I hope to be able to sail longer. It teaches you skills like self-sufficiency. When you go to sea you have to have a mindset that you can rely on no-one else except your crew. No matter what, you must be able to cope. It also teaches you co-operation, teamwork, and to live with people in tight situations.”

Levin says the sea economy offers great careers, from working on super yachts to boat building and more. The Royal Cape Yacht Club’s sailing academy trains youngsters from previously disadvantaged backgrounds. Young people from this programme took part in the recent Cape to Rio race, and came third.

In 2014, Levin was very ill and thought he wouldn’t go to sea again, but he was back to sailing in a race in 2019. After his most recent trip, he hopes to be strong enough to do another one in two years’ time. “I go to sea to commune with my maker, and find inner peace.”