Day 1 - Start Day & Frist Night
ARC Crossing 2017
Mon 20 Nov 2017 08:47
After last minute preparations ashore, and goodbyes to the wonderful shore team of Lesley, Andrea, Caroline and Sam we headed out of Las Palmas for the start at about 1100. Great atmosphere leaving the marina, and then on to the start. A little bit of excitement caused by another boat on the start being confused about port/starboard and who had right of way, but Team Chapman put us over the line within 5 secs of the gun and less than one boat length from the windward mark. All the more impressive as the instruments weren't working at the time. We have an intermittent fault with the B&G system that has made it cut out twice, although we now have it stable but without boat speed (log) or wind speed.
Cracking sail down the east coast of Gran Canaria, seeing > 10kn SOG frequenty with the kite up, albeit a small delay when a connector at the tack broke. That left us a with a large flappy flag to calm down, but that was sorted pretty quickly and now resolved. At that point we'd made up quite a lot of time on some race boats and the multihulls that started before us. Lovely food from the chef, kite down at sunset and then the first night watch, livened up by the B&G tripping out again and wind going up to 30kn (reef time) and then down to 10kn (reef out). Currently contemplating breakfast and sunrise, and down to 2 other boats visible.