Day 1 - Las Palmas to Mindello
Rik
Mon 6 Nov 2023 13:15
The ARC is marketed as a rally not a race, so I was slightly concerned to find there was a racing start.
I planned to just lurk at the back and follow the other catamarans across the line. However, once we were put there with the other 35 cats and 60 monohulls the excitement was too much and we joined in and even beat a few of the cats across the line. The wind forecast was for fresh winds so most boats had put in a reef or two, However the wind was lower than forecast and it took a while to get across the start line. There was a five minute limit to cross the line after the starting hooter.
This is us passing the committee boat at the north end of the start line.
Once over the line we were a bit slow with our well reefed mainsail, that is until we got out our beautiful blue spinnaker!
Everything was going well and we were making good progress, until we caught a fish ! We had been warned in one of the seminars that squals or big gusts always hit as you catch a fish. Before we knew it the spinnaker had wrapped itself around the snuffing lines and then the head stay. After a lot of pulling and puffing we eventually managed to drop it on the deck and then spent the next half an hour trying to get it back in its snuffer (bag). The long and the short of it is that we now have a small tear in the spinnaker, nothing that a bit of repair tape won’t fix. The wind is set to increase over the next two days so we probably wouldn’t have got another chance to fly it before Mindello anyway.
After the spinnaker incident a large group of dolphins came and swam with us to cheer us up. Some jumping 6-12 feet on the air just because they can !
This one is more like 6-12 inches, they are a bit like the kitkat pandas!
The wind picked up overnight and the swell increased a little but apart from one gybe in 30 knots that took Dicky and I half an hour to complete, it was otherwise uneventful. To stop the mainsail crash gybing we use a “preventer” a rope run from the end of the boom to the front of the boat and back to a winch, this however has to be removed and refitted on the other side each time we gybe (downwind turn). We also use a barber haul on the foresail which also has to be removed and reset. So in the dark in 30 knots this can take some doing. And yes we were wearing life jackets and we were clipped on to prevent falling overboard!!
Today we saw a humpback whale about 10 metres to the port side, it was enormous!!
Our most recent encounter with wildlife was a bird that was trying to pick up Dicky’s fishing lure. He was very difficult to deter but eventually he flew away.
We are currently sailing west for a few hours so we can then gybe towards Mindello. In these conditions we are unable to sail directly downwind, the best we can manage is 25-30 degrees off, so we are zig zagging our way south !!
The parade before the start !!