Day 1 - ARC Start aka heavy first night - skipper Pete
Following the rally postponement, our rescheduled start time was 1100, with the racing divisions starting before us at 1030. Our plan was to leave the marina shortly before 1100 to avoid the congestion at the marina entrance/exit. While watching others depart, we saw quite a few close calls due to boats having to slow to a stop in the queue and losing all steerage. I suppose that's what fenders and insurance are for.
After a final Bon Voyage from landlubber Aussie pal Lisa, we pushed off the pontoon at 1045, headed out past the large crowd on the harbour wall (probably a 50/50 mixture of environmental protesters and spectators) to the sounds of a marching band and hyper enthusiastic canarian MC calling boat names as they passed. The plan to moon the ARC photographer never quite came together. The start line was quite tame, we breezed over it a few minutes after 1100 and got under way.
The weather was a mixed bag leaving Las Palmas, around 15 knots of wind with some bigger gusts and some patchy blue sky. We had been well warned by the ARC forecaster of the perils of the wind acceleration zone down the eastern side of the islands, which could form localised patches at gale force. We heeded his advice with a simple sailplan and looked on as others shredded spinnakers or ended up flat on their ear with too much sail up.
The instructions for an Atlantic crossing in the direction we plan are to "head south until the butter melts then turn right" but first we had to make a right turn around the bottom of Gran Canaria. A fine dinner of hot dogs helped to relieve some of the queasiness as everyone acclimatised to the rolling motion, particularly when down below.
We made our right hand turn and were still in fairly gentle winds. At this time I went for a sleep as per the watch system and when I came back up around 1030, the wind was blowing hard and we had a confused wave pattern making steering difficult. As I poked my head into the cockpit, I saw Nacho grinning as he surfed down the waves. While on watch with him, he posted the first speed record of the trip - 12.6 knots.
Nacho and I continued our watch and took turns at the wheel in the building seas and winds. We took a breaking wave over the deck which knocked our spinnaker pole off its mount, so a trip to the foredeck was necessary to lash it down before it could cause any damage swinging around. Before you ask - yes we were clipped on and yes we were very careful.... Incidentally the breaking wave also knocked James out of bed and created a rainfall of citrus fruit down below. As Nacho came off watch and Andy appeared, we realised our enthusiasm surfing had brought us into the middle of the pack, we had probably 30-40 boats within a couple of miles and it seemed like everyone wanted to cross our path. Throughout the night the crew skillfully weaved through the fleet, acknowledging our fellow sailors who were gracious in their approach, and cursing the arseholes who seemed intent on running everyone down. I had silently hoped for a slightly gentler first few days to let everyone settle into the motion of the boat and the watch system, but everyone seemed to enjoy polishing their downwind helming skills with a view to smashing through NAcho's speed record.
So all in all, not a bad first day. No puking so far and only a small alternator issue to contend with, until it's fixed there are no electrical luxuries on board (autopilot being the most desired item).
