ARC Day 9

 

Ceilidh’s Daily run by log was 200NM on a course of 250M with a wind angle of 100T at F4 and full sail set. Again a really fantastic consistent performance sailing on a beam reach with 14-16knots of breeze and hand steered by all the watches once again.

Almost a surreal 24hrs to report this morning with first of all the warmest and most pleasant day of the trip yesterday as Ceilidh showed her quick step again to cruise at 9knots with ease. The sea conditions were the most comfortable yet with just a slight beam swell.

We held our mid Atlantic celebration with some excellent snacks and a cold beer all round. We all felt it was amazing to have reached this point already and for me it put in perspective a year’s planning for the whole trip.

We had been heading South of our rhumb line to St Lucia to avoid some mid Atlantic light airs but found that the breeze was more Southerly and pushed us back close to our original course.

Then overnight we have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous! The night sky had been overcast then the heavens opened at around 07:00 giving us non stop rain that reminds us all of home! The joke amongst the crew this morning that one of our crew nicknamed Zorro had steered Ceilidh erraticaly back to home waters overnight!

The breeze dropped to 10knots so we finally hoisted code blue from the deck. This Gennaker then gave us 7-8knots for an hour before the breeze completely died and from 11:00 exactly local time we have the engine on to motor sail. All cruising class yachts are allowed to run and then declare engine hours and a time penalty is applied at the end of the race. The light airs have come earlier than forecast and thanks for all the tips from our shore based supporters although Rear Admiral of Greenbank has sat on his hands on this occasion!

So we are motoring for what is hoped is a very short duration in this most windy of ARC’s so far. The Grib forecast shows around 12 knots NE filling in at our latitude which will suit our planned course very well.

On to our ARC Christmas song verse today:

On the 4th day of Ceilidh’s ARC my skipper gave to me, 4 squealing pulleys! ( steering system)

 

Dave Sturrock