Cape Town sailboat skipper Sibusiso Sizatu’s epic journey to reach the Cape2Rio

Sibusiso Sizatu (R), skipper of the yacht, ArchAngel, makes final preparations with members of his young crew before the start of the Cape2Rio trans-Atlantic yacht race, in Table Bay near Cape Town on January 2, 2023. The ArchAngel starts to sail for Rio de Janeiro on January 2, 2022 as part of the Cape2Rio race first staged in 1971. It will be racing against more than a dozen other boats from five countries to cover the more than 6,000 kilometres (3,728 miles) of Atlantic waters separating the two cities. (Photo by RODGER BOSCH / AFP)

By Keanan Hemmonsbey

24 Nov 2024

It was an arduous road for Sibusiso Sizatu who led his crew during their history-making race.

When the Alexforbes ArchAngel came into Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro with one spinnaker torn in half and another with a rip in it, a problematic rudder and no battery, skipper Sibusiso Sizatu and his crew had no idea that they were crossing the finish line in the 2023 Cape2Rio yacht race in third place.

At 44, the ArchAngel was the oldest boat by more than 15 years in a fleet of 16 that had entered the race, and four of the five crew members, including Sizatu, had never crossed the ocean by boat before.

The goal, which was initiated all the way back in 2018, was just to compete in the Cape2Rio, but when it all came together five years later, the well-oiled team was good enough for a podium finish, about three hours off second place.

For the ArchAngel’s crew, crossing the ocean was a feat their families could hardly imagine.

“You need to value your life,” his father said to Sizatu when he explained what exactly the Cape2Rio entailed. His dad added that he was grateful that his son had life insurance.

The crew aboard the ArchAngel each hailed from marginalised communities in Cape Town – Masiphumelele, Khayelitsha, Grassy Park and Athlone. They were all members of the Royal Cape Yacht Club Sailing Academy.

Though an experienced sailor, Sizatu had never crossed the ocean before the epic journey. “By us opening the path, we will help other youngsters believe that they can do it too,” he told Daily Maverick about the significance of completing the expedition.

A bumpy ride

Sizatu had served as a mentor to the other four young sailors in his crew before the Cape2Rio. He and Alex Burger were also training partners for the 2012 and 2016 Olympians Roger Hudson and Asenathi Jim at the RaceAhead Yacht Club.

But the journey to the upper echelons of South African sailing was hard for Sizatu, who is originally from rural Qumbu in the Eastern Cape. His first nine years were spent looking after his family’s livestock and hunting with his older brothers while his peers attended school.

Sizatu was born in a hut and never taken to a clinic or hospital as a baby, so he didn’t have a birth certificate for the first two decades of his life.

“I watched other kids go to school, but it didn’t bother me, to be honest,” he said. “I enjoyed it because at that time I went hunting with my older brothers.

sailing The 44-year-old Alexforbes ArchAngel. (Photo: Supplied)

“My grandmother told me it was because of my birth certificate that I couldn’t go to school. I was a ‘foreigner’ for years because nobody knew I existed.”

Sizatu only started attending primary school as a 10-year-old when he moved to Masiphumelele with his father. An instructor from the Izivunguvungu Sailing Academy came to his school two years later and encouraged the children to join it.

“[He] gave an introduction to sailing and at that time I didn’t even know what sailing was because I couldn’t even speak my second language [English],” Sizatu said. “[But] my friends got involved immediately and started sailing.”

After finding out the sailing academy served food to his friends, Sizatu promptly joined. But incessant nausea caused by both the car ride to Simon’s Town and sea sickness when sailing meant he was unable to eat while there.

“When I went out sailing I got sea sick and I was scared of the ocean,” Sizatu said. “I screamed because I couldn’t sail and I was getting sick and getting scared… I saw no point going anymore. I was actually going because of the food, but I couldn’t eat the food because I was getting nauseous.

“One day I walked back from Simon’s Town all the way to Masiphumelele. It took about three hours. I just left everyone there.”

Among the best

Sizatu changed his mind after his friends were given free shoes and soccer balls and taken on a trip to Spain. He went back and committed himself to becoming a sailor.

“I needed to face my fear of getting sea sick,” he said. “I went back there and my friend was patient enough to run me through everything to take the fear away – and I loved it.”

Sizatu improved rapidly from there and was scouted by the RaceAhead Sailing Academy, a high-performance environment where he eventually became Hudson and Jim’s training partner. “When I got there I realised it’s a different level of sailing,” he said.

Read more: Young Cape Town sailors set to realise their superyacht dreams with once-in-a-lifetime trip to Spain

His consistent performance saw him recognised as one of the best junior sailors in the country, and he was on track to be sent to the Junior World Championships in La Rochelle, France. The only issue was that Sizatu still didn’t have a birth certificate, so obtaining a passport wasn’t possible.

“I looked at sailing as something fun to do. It never clicked that it’s something to take seriously,” Sizatu said, explaining that he wasn’t too concerned about not having the necessary papers at the time.

Sibusiso Sizatu (right), skipper of the ArchAngel, makes final preparations with his young crew in Table Bay on 2 January 2024 before the start of the Cape2Rio race. (Photo: Rodger Bosch / AFP)

His coach eventually helped him to obtain official documents, and at 21 years old he received his birth certificate, identity document and passport all in one go.

“Straight after that I was booked to go to the Junior World Championships in France,” Sizatu said. He raced with Jim at the event.

“We started off very well. Out of 89 boats we were fourth overall and then, as the week went on, we started to get tired. We made mistakes as we got tired and we dropped all the way to 16th.”

But, they were happy with their result because they were “two black youngsters going overseas to represent the country” and they had managed to do well enough.

A big dream

A few years later, the Royal Cape Yacht Club came calling and asked him to help win back the Lipton Cup, which it had lost the previous year, in 2016.

Read more: South African sensation Kirsten Neuschäfer makes history as first woman to win old-school round-the-world yacht race

Sizatu did exactly that, but while training at the Foreshore in Cape Town, he spotted a group of youngsters at the club’s academy who were not sailing.

“When I was there on weekends, I’d see this group of youngsters sitting around and some of them walking up and down on the boats. I looked at them and thought that’s where I come from. They are me.

“I spoke to the manager who was there and asked why the youngsters aren’t sailing, and he said there’s a language barrier. These youngsters are from the township and the terminology of the boat is in English and they can’t understand it.”

Sizatu took the group under his wing and the dream of completing the Cape2Rio was born – and realised in 2023. His next dream is that the all-female sailing crew he is training now will undertake the same journey he did in next year’s Cape2Rio. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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A bumpy ride

Among the best

A big dream