The Andromeda (Atlantic) Quest
andromeda of plymouth
Susan and Andrew Wilson
Sun 25 Oct 2009 15:29
triggers a huge amount of activity and excitement and, probably, life
changing experiences. The reason? We have been confirmed on the ARC for
2010. Yippeeee!!!!!!! Andromeda and 5 crew have been accepted for the
Cruising Division, starting from Las Palmas on the 21st of November 2010,
heading for St. Lucia as quickly as possible. Nick, Chris and Phil – you
have been committed (or perhaps you may need to be)! Wow – we are so
excited!
We will be getting lots of information next year and will have to undergo
a rigorous safety inspection which we are fully committed to. All yachts
on the 2010 ARC will have satellite tracking systems installed to
automatically track positions and report back to the organisers – as we
already have a way of doing this we be very, very trackable on a variety
of web sites!! We can sail but we can't hide. There is a weekend of
seminars in the UK in March next year which will give us lots of
information for preparing Andromeda for the trip. We are looking forward
to that as well as cruising this part of Europe before heading to the
Canaries.
We could take one more person onboard Andromeda for the ARC crossing as we
are limited by the capacity of the life raft – just curious, is anyone out
there mad enough to want to join us? I should say that before anyone does
volunteer they should read the blogs on the World Cruising Club and the
Mailasail web sites once this year’s event starts, at the end of November,
to get a flavour of the highs (and the lows) of such a trip before taking
the bull by the horns so to speak. We estimate that we will be at sea for
between 18 and 24 days depending on wind speed, how fast we can maintain
Andromeda through the waves, the conditions we encounter, and the route we
take. Still, we are certainly looking forward to the challenge and
adventure next year.
The davits that we originally had, and bent when we caught the lobster pot
off Old Harry, need to be replaced as they no longer fit in the gantry, so
we have asked the Sopromar boat yard to construct some replacements. These
are due in the next few days and will allow us to keep the dinghy
inflated, but not on the fore deck, making much more space to move around
Andromeda. We have been busy cleaning – the decks, the cockpit, the engine
and engine room, the saloon, cabins and berths, and of course the
cupboards. We have also been busy re-stacking cupboards, tackling the
niggling few water leaks – mostly rain and therefore through the deck
somewhere (ggrrrr – very difficult to trace..) it appears, as the recent
torrential downpours have highlighted, and sourcing the bits and pieces we
needed to replace or which we found were needed on the trip so far. The
saloon lights have been fixed – turned out to be a series of fuse
problems, and we have raised the genoa a few inches. That’s been on the
list for months! Still quite a few jobs to do on the list however,
although basil is doing very well, parsley has just started and there is
no sign of chives!
We are very pleased that the leaks from the canopy have now stopped after
we thoroughly cleaned and re-waterproofed the whole thing. The torrential
downpours over the past few days have thoroughly tested the waterproofing,
so we are pretty chuffed with our efforts. A small success, but important
nonetheless, for the forthcoming Portuguese winter.
We are also exploring how to get better blogs with pictures posted so are
investigating tools and products to allow us to play around with HTML (and
I thought learning new technology was a thing of the past ;-) ) – may take
a little while but we would like to make the blogs a little more
interesting rather than simply post a series of pictures with little or no
context – watch this space, or rather future blogs.
We are looking forward to returning to the UK next month and catching up
with as many folks as we can. More as and when...... we're off to the
beach for a swim........
Susan & Andrew
S/Y Andromeda
Marina de Lagos (Berth F33)