The rally Portugal Team

 

Pete taking it easy and letting the boat and crew do the work.

 

 

Tereza;

 

 

Chris;

 

 

Si;

 

 

 

Chris and Si the night before departure;

 

 

Before the rally Portugal we spent 2 weeks training in the Solent with up to force 8 winds, the waves so far were bigger in the Solent than those we have found in the Bay of Biscay so far.

 

 

 

Pete at the helm:

 

 

 

31^st May 2006

 

We departed from Port Solent on 31^st May and had a fast sail down to Plymouth the starting point to rally Portugal and arrived at 18:00.   All the other boats had arrived before us and had their flags flying.

 

 

 

4^th June 2006

 

The Rally Portugal boats sailed across the starting line at 09:00 by the Royal Plymouth Yacht Club photographs were taken and can be found on the World Cruising Club Web Site ‘www.worldcruising.com’.  Although not one of the first to cross the start line, we made good progress for the first 30 minutes catching up the lead boats.  

 

 

 

Goodbye Plymouth.

 

During 4^th and 5^th June we made very slow progress under sail due to low winds with an average.  Most of the other rally Portugal boats started there engines as they already needed those sandy beaches and sardines on the Barbeque, in the meantime we were having a relaxing time doing some fishing and catching the last of the UK sunshine.

 

Catch of the day, now just to divide it with the rest of the crew.

 

 

 

5^th June 2006

 

This day started off slowly, with everybody apart from Tereza sleeping.  We sailed from Lands End down towards Biscay and managed to get to the main Biscay leg.  Winds picked up and we were sailing on a broad reach with the cruising chute in up to 21 knots of wind,  Lady Drake managed to peak at 10 knots.

 

 

 

 

The Rally Yachts are currently ahead of us as we headed further west and hope to now make good progress,  time will tell.

 

6^th June 2006

 

As soon as the sun rose we re-launched the Cruising Chute, the boat immediately responded has been speeding towards Bayona.

 

 

 

It is really most wonderful when you see the sun go down.

 

 

Almost crossing the continental shelf: