Three of our crew (Ken, Liz, Graham) arrived Wed. afternoon and Gareth arrived Thursday. When we add in our skipper/owner, Chris Horseman, we’re a crew of 5. Gareth is the only one of us with a previous crossing. Our boat, Hakuna Matata, is a 42 foot Lagoon catamaran. It’s the new diesel-electric hybrid model.
We’ve been extremely busy with last minute boat preparation, provisioning and ARC training briefings. Our Thursday training included a demo of helicopter evacuation at sea, using flares and life-raft practice in a pool. It was the first time I’ve ever actually tried to enter a life raft. It’s not that easy. We also got a 3 hour boat orientation form Chris Friday morning. Chris and Liz got that class in the UK.
We’ve had our share of challenges: getting the sat-phone to link with the computer aged Chris several years, and we have a problem with one of our battery chargers that we’re just going to live with as there is no time to get a part from France. Finding a place to put food and beverages for 5 people for a month has been fun as well. We’ve got food stuffed in every corner and having fresh fruit, veggies and a whole ham hanging in the cabin. Even so we have much more room than most of the mono-hulls.
We had a test sail Friday afternoon, and figured out how to rig our new asymmetrical spinnaker sail. It took a cell phone call with the sail-maker from the UK, but we got it done.
We’ve had our share of social stuff as well. There was a costume party for ARC participants on Wed, and a Lagoon dinner on Thurs. We all skipped the farewell party last night. Tonight there is another party at 11 PM and fireworks at midnight.
Tomorrow is the race start. Boats will start lining up at 10:30 even though our start is not until 1300. With 225 boats at the start and 2,800 miles to run, we’re not going to try to be first across the line, but it will definitely be interesting….
…Chris, Ken Liz, Graham, Gareth