A Very Busy Day
Rik
Sat 18 Nov 2023 13:55
Yesterday we left Cape Verde for Grenada. The official start was set for 12:00 so we had a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and got going with all those last minute jobs, pre departure checks and of course a team photo.
We were called off our mooring at 11:00 and headed out towards the start line. The atmosphere was great 94 boats raising mainsails and jostling for position.
Dicky did a great job getting us “front of the grid” for the start. The bosun called out the last few minutes on the countdown timer and we waited for the hooter. We already had the mainsail up so we unfurled the jib and we were off.
It was incredibly exciting with the other 93 boats all around us. All was going well until we heard some shouting on our starboard side, as we watched a yacht called Valent try to sail straight through a tight group of three yachts calling “water” ! It’s not a race it’s a rally and everyone else was being courteous and reasonable, not Valent, he was not only pushing the racing rules but making a few up. Anyway it all settled down again until we found him on our port side, getting closer and closer trying to push us to starboard, but we couldn’t move far as there was another boat there. He kept coming and at closest was no more than a metre off our port beam. When he started shouting at us, I politely pointed out “it’s not a f…ing race”! He then claimed we cut across his bow, highly unlikely as we were on autopilot holding a steady course. As the wind picked up we pulled away from him and peace was restored once more.
During discussions about when to gybe and head south to where we felt the stronger winds would be, we decided to try “wing on wing” or “goose winged”, this is where you head straight down wind with mainsail out one side and headsail out the other. It was working for other boats, so why not us, what could possibly go wrong ?!
A crash gybe, that’s what went wrong !! Followed by a preventer strap failure. We decided to accept the gybe and point south but Moose decided to head back towards Mindelo and sailed right through the wind again. Engines on, control regained and all set to sail south through the night.
At this point we realised that both the satellite link and the AIS had given up. AIS stands for Automated Identification System which enables boats, ships etc to see who else is nearby. After an hour of trying we got the Satellite going again and settled down to a lovely dinner of Spanish Chicken, lovingly prepared by Kath and Caroline. However no amount of fiddling could get the AIS working, once again we were receiving but not transmitting, I therefore advised the watch keepers to be extra careful and retired to bed.
This morning the AIS appears to be working again, doh !!!
There will be two Court Martials this morning, one for sleeping on watch and the other for not getting up for their watch! The accused will remain anonymous until charged. Penalties are likely to be down in ones on arrival in St George’s.
Last night was slow and lumpy, regularly down below 4 knots of boat speed, at one point we had negative VMG (velocity made good) which is an indication of your speed towards your target. We are taking a risk in heading south where we are hoping to find more wind, which may be why at one point there were only seven boats behind us, and four of those were still in the harbour at Mindelo. Hopefully this strategy will pay off, we now have about twenty boats behind us.
Watch this space !