Sunday Evening:
We left an hour or so after the Fanfare of the ARC
start. Our leaving was slightly hampered by a number of ARC
boats returning for repairs. A
couple of hours later we caught the tail enders and have since been wading
through the fleet. One ARC boat
radioed the port for help as they
had lost their steering , managed to wrap a sheet around the prop and wanted to
be towed back the 10 miles or so they had made. Another had done a crash jibe and injured a crew
member’s hand. Others had engine and rigging failures
and wanted return for repairs and start again.We had a great run through the
acceleration zone with a lot of 11 knot plus sailing, but now after sunset the
wind has veered NE and dropped to a mere force 3. So we’re testing the engine for a
bit. We’ve been treated to a spectacular moon rise.
Midnight. We’ve been sailing again since
8pm and have passed dozens of ARC
boats including Scorpione Dei Mari who at 30 meters is much bigger than us
. The crew includes Juan Carlos who
owns the main chandlerly in Gran Canaria and who was extremely helpful and
generous with his time during our
ordeal. We’re steaming along at 10
knots and the moon is fantastic on the water.
With
four of us the watch system is
two hours on and six hours off.
However as Nik is new to the boat I will stay up an extra hour and Steve
will get up an hour early until he is ready to do a solo
watch.
Noon 27/11/07
We’re zipping along at 8 knots and two dorados
take both the fishing lines, the second one 20 seconds after the first. We
turn into the wind and drop the
Yankee reducing boat speed to a crawl. Not we’re travelling in the opposite
direction. After much wrestling Steve and Sotiris manage to gaff the larger
dorado but when Sotiris put him on the aft deck he leapt about and escaped. The second one which was of a more
managable size was landed by Nik and was not so lucky as his
friend.
During all this, Scorpione Del Mari who had been
lagging 4 miles behind us gained a couple, as did Heartbeat, another large ARC
Yacht which has been shadowing us for some hours. We have long since passed the slower
members of the fleet and there are only these two yachts close
by.
2
PM.
24 hour run 198 miles even with stopping for
fish.
