Day 1 (Attempt 2) - Peaceful progress towards Cape Verde
ARC Crossing 2017
Sun 3 Dec 2017 15:44
We finally left Santa Cruz at 1330 yesterday afternoon, as it seemed there was no prospect of getting the new main on board before early in the week. An overly optimistic shipper had said 'it will be at your boat 2pm Friday' which in reality meant a 96kg sail was landing at the airport 60kmn away at 2.10pm on a Friday afternoon in Spain.....
We've made good progress since then, motorsailing as planned. At noon we were 176nm from Tenerife (188nm at 1330 for the 1st 24 hours) which is a decent result, although as we are heading SW towards Cape Verde, a route which is 250nm further than the direct one, we only made good 97nm towards St Lucia.
Boat wise with light winds and calm seas (but grey skies and the odd bit of drizzle) it has been about making good some repairs to the main which were only worth doing if the new one didn't get here. That does mean we only had Reef 3 functioning last night rather than full sail, but we are almost up to full capability again.
The crew have been settling into the watch routine, Dave has been getting to know the boat and Arran produce a great spaghetti bolognese with garlic bread last night. Sadly some of the 'long life' half baked bread was showing signs of going mouldy, so we've cooked or frozen ther balance. Bacon rolls this morning, and Arran got his guitar out at lunchtime, which may have been what caused the rain :-)
Hoping for the wind to fill in overnight so that we can get the motor turned off and crack on a bit faster.