Profile

Owners: Robin and Sue Carter

Nationality: British

Make/ Model: Najad 405

LOA: 12.2m

Mission statement: ‘porridge is the power’

 

On November 20th 2011 Halsway Grace will be leaving Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to sail the 2, 500 miles to St Lucia in the Caribbean with 250 other boats participating in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC)

 

The journey to Las Palmas-

We set out from Henan in Sweden in May 2008 and took 3 years of pottering south to get to dusty, old Malta in the summer of 2010. Getting back to Gibraltar and then Las Palmas this summer made us realise just how hard poor Halsway (pronounced “halsi”) Grace had been working as we had after all been living on her for 4-5 months each year.

From Malta we sailed to Siracuse in Sicily, a fascinating town ........(alternator in and out before blown fuse discovered!)

Onwards north through the Straits of Messina with no sign of Scilla or Charibdis and onto the smelly island of Vuclano. Fortunately the wind was onshore and our sinuses were spared the sulphur scour. 

Then back to our by now familiar haunt of Trepani to await fair wind for southern Sardinia, which we made on the second attempt.

We had a cracking sail along the southern coast before beating a gale to Menorca. In Mahon we revisited Collingwood’s hospital on Isle de Ray.

Onwards past Mallorca and Ibiza  (on the south coast this time) to anchor off Formentera (where we noticed the ‘clunking’ in the back stay tensioner')

On mainland Spain there was still snow on the Sierra Nevada but was very hot we had a prolonged stay in Almerimar to replace the overcharged batteries(!)  and took the opportunity to visit the amazing Alhambra Palace in Grenada.   

Past the miles of hydroponic plastic sheeting saw us in Estapona having said clunking back stay part replaced (thank you Antonio)

In Gibraltar we picked up a plastic inflatable fish and our crew Roy and Hazel for our shake down/delivery trip to Las Palmas where we arrived 6 days later with a torn headsail and a graunching noise from the rudder but an otherwise great trip.

Halsway Grace now snug in Las Palmas with a new headsail on its way and the rudder bearings repaired thanks to Robin and Roy’s working holiday in LP and the kind lift out by Real Club Nautico.