Sunday ARC leaves

Catmojo
Matt
Sun 21 Nov 2021 08:46
21:13N 23:55W at 0815, now motoring at 5 knots in grey calm weather, but warmer. Las Palmas is 620nm back in 4 days, slow but steady enough.

The ARC leaves today but 7knots of wind from the SE in Las Palmas is unusual - SE is the direction in which they need to set off. They get sponsorship from the local travel and tourism ministry so they can't go round the north side of the island - the idea is to give a nice boaty spectacle along the east coast, and that spectacle this year might last longer than usual with adverse slow winds lasting all day and into the next. One ARC skipper recalled another slow year and still being able to see Gran Canaria 4 days after leaving. Unless it's dangerous (and it isn't, it's just very calm winds in the wrong direction) ... they gotta go today. Probably a N-S startline and send them out into the bay. Once at the south end of the island then the winds come from the west, also against them. Heck.

Great sailing yesterday on Mojo at over 10 knots during the day, all very good but then another sailing boat zoomed up from the N at 11knots. Yeehah! Definitely French as it showed the name "BHB" on AIS - and having a three-character name/reference like this is vairy French Hardcore Offshore Racerish. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy to forget the name as I'm sure I met a similarly named boat last year in St Martin. Did I? It was trois letters including a B in there anyway. He called up for weather info and I asked him on VHF - was it you? Not him he says, but a friend. Hm, so I'm not sure if he's in the same loon boat, or (probably) there's lots of easily-forgettable code-named super-speedy boats? ABC or XYZ or TNT would be a bit easier to remember, surely? But I remember the guy indicating that's the point - to get away from the "favourite name" thing and just have a 3-character reference - they're more "serious", see? Mind you, what about calling it a code like (say) "007"? Hm? Not that serious, really. If I were French and felt I had to use a three-letter name/code I might call it "ZUT" or "BOF".

BHB broadcasts its boat name on AIS to other boats/ships as "BHB Solo Sailor" - and Mojo does the same! Haha. I altered course to help him pass in front anyway. But thinking about it - if more and more sailing boats broadcast as "solo sailor" then the effectiveness of warding others away will wane. A friend (Mike) in St Martin did suggest alternatives to "solo sailor" to keep others distant while at sea, such as "Mojo - Experimental Nuclear Propulsion System", say? But I might have problems with the coastguards with that, and marinas too. Perhaps a hefty dose of woke eco-aggression might be best - something like "Mojo - Ocean Pollution Research Vessel" would keep others well away with their dieselly bilges and much worse pumped straight overboard.

Right I'll try send this anyway.