ARC Farewell Party

Wallace's Sailing Adventure on "Arbella"
Mike and Vicki Wallace
Fri 23 Nov 2012 22:48

Well....the dialogue across the dock all day has been about...WEATHER!!  There is a very troubling front northwest of Gran Canaria, and heading south, which is producing winds out of the southwest, which is just the direction we want to go...."wind on the nose"....further, winds by most models seem to be 30 knots and waves 20 feet, since wind and wave are opposing...and by Monday night we will also be dealing with heavy rain.  What to do...  So as we arrived at the Farewell Party, Scott immediately sought out Chris Tibbs from the ARC team, who is their weather expert...he confirmed pretty tough conditions.  A few boats have definitely decided to delay their start, most boats, like us, are gathering information, data, analysis, and "guesses" by the experts.  But the Farewell Party was very well attended, with good drink and appetizers.  We were there with our "Paul's blue short sleeve shirts"....one of the several articles of "Arbella" clothing the boat procured for the crew through Paul, when he was still at Team One Newport!  So it looks like the "count" is 225 boats, about 1200  people, AND, 43 kids under the age of 16...the boat next to us, about 60 feet and "tired", has an 8 month old and a 3 year old....we have seen every type of boat and all makeups of crew... with several people still walking the docks with their "do you need crew" introduction, as they look for a ride across the pond.  The smallest boat is 32 feet, and there are several at 36/37 feet, we are 59 feet, and the biggest is an 88 ft Oyster.  With the 24 Oysters in this ARC, there are now, exactly, 300 Oyster's that have participated in ARC's....8 of the Oysters will join up with the ARC World Rally in Antigua, about 30 boats total,  for the start in January.  But for now....what to do about the WEATHER....should we "go", or skip the official start on Sunday and leave 24-36 hours later?

JPEG image

JPEG image

JPEG image