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Arrayan 2 - Tuesday Nov. 25th 20:30 UTC - ‘This year some records will be broken!’



This year’s preparations for the crossing have been particularly interesting on board of Arrayan 2. When sailing south end of September, we had the ‘honour’ of saving a man out of the water and shortly after encountered engine problems. These turned out to be so severe that the engine had to be totally dismounted; during which it was unclear if all could be taken care of before the start of the race. While all crew flew home and continued their normal lives the Volvo engineers went all the way and dealt with it in an extremely professional and diligent manner, for which we are extremely thankful! After returning, all that had to be done were some test runs. The boat was taken out of the water for some final checks and we were good to go!

A local in the harbour told us that on average they experience three to four days of rain a year. As a low pressure area ensured with continuous showers and occasionally 30+ knots of wind inland, they will now need a couple of no-rain years for his claim to hold. When we overheard someone from the ARC organisation make the remark ‘This year some records will be broken!’, with a little laughter, we discussed if this was in a good way. The start of the race was postponed by 22 hours.

Since the start, conditions have turned out to be good. On the first day the wind was a bit inconsistent due to the islands geography and had a tendency to back & veer randomly. Today, the second day, we’ve had a steady 18-22 knots breeze. Most of the day we’ve sailed side by side with Europa Horizens and Catty Sark. (Europa Horizens, if you want some pictures, contact us in the Caribbean!) The three of us are relatively north of the rest of the fleet, a tactical move which hopefully will pay off!

Keep you posted!

Lennert Zwanenburg - Arrayan 2

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