Day 1, 2
Gins.pt
Tue 24 Nov 2009 12:49
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Sunday, November 22, 2009
It was a very nice morning, some wind, no
clouds. We started the day "D" with a good breakfast,
followed by a visit in marina showers. Marko and
myself used the last wifi opportunity and
made an electronic check to St. Lucia immigration
and customs office. Marko also collected
the morning weather forecast.
Last checks on the boat, review of starting rules
and then observing the many boats leaving through
the narrow gate of
marina, cheared by a huge enthusiastic crowd on the wave breaker. We left among
the
last 40 minutes before the start. We were about 2
minutes late in crossing the starting line to avoid
the mess of 190 boat rushing to get the best start
on a rally, 2800 nautical miles long .Therefore
no dramatic situation at the
beginning.
But right after there was a decision to be made -
Shall we hoist the Parasailor (my new spinnaker
with a hole in the middle and a roof above).The
wind was 5 knots and would be increasing as we
would come along the island into the wind
acceleration area.
The decision was to set the Parasailor. We did use
an extended time to hoist it as we had very little
practice time due to the late arrival of crew. Once
on it was a joy to watch it fly as well as to see the
speed it brought. That helped us to start
closing the distance to other boats made during our discovery
work on Parasailor. The wind increased to 25
knots rather quickly and we remembered the words of our
Parasailor instructor who said that if you had not
taken it down at 20 knots then the best thing was to leave
it on until you reach St. Lucia or it teard.
Nevertheless we took it down without any problem.
Time for the last phone calls and sms's.
Lunch was served by our two cooks - Matjaz and Jure - gulash with
polenta
In the evening we changed the course towards west
not to come too close to the African coast during the night.
Early morning we turned back to the south . At
13:00 UTC we were celebrating the result of the first day.
We made 201,6 nautical miles in 24 hours !
Due to quite high waves (3-4m) late lunch at 5 pm was again gulash, this
time
with cooked potatoes. The second day it tasted even
better. (no wonder, the cooks used half a bottle of Rioha to thin
it)
Just before sunset we agreed on our sailing
course and sails during the night..
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