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Dyssel’s Eventful Arrival



We’ve cracked the 150-yacht mark here in Saint Lucia just as the clock has ticked past 22 days since the start of ARC 2014. It’s almost impossible now for arriving boats to make a quiet entrance into the marina. Day and night participants are out on the docks, cheering on their fellow sailors at their substantial accomplishment.

After a quiet spell on the docks last night, with no arrivals in the early hours before the dawn, we had a bit of a surge this morning, with three yachts crossing the line between 0800 and noon. Dyssel, a Finnish-flagged Swan, had a particularly eventful arrival earlier this morning.

“About 150 miles ago, we were all out in the cockpit moving along under engine, when all of a sudden ‘BANG!’ the prop stopped working,” said skipper Arimo Leppa.

Not sure what had happened, the crew dove overboard in the calm conditions and inspected the running gear, only to find one of the blades of the folding propeller had gone missing.

“I have no idea how it happened,” added Leppa, “but obviously we couldn’t motor after that!”

Dyssel set their light-air sails and continued towards the island. No longer tempted to run the engine to speed up their arrival, they spent the last day of the passage in peace and quiet.

“We sailed around Pigeon Island and across the finishing line, which was quite nice,” said Leppa.

Local captain Quincy headed out of Rodney Bay Marina to rendezvous with Dyssel in his ‘Rule the Tide’ taxi boat, hooking up along their starboard quarter to act as tug boat to the disabled ARC yacht.



Boats under tow, when possible, are generally given an easy-to-access space on either I dock or J dock, to facilitate the towing. And Dyssel is by no means the first. Rafiki came in under tow a few nights ago due to an engine failure, with local taxi captain Shaka coming to their aid and towing them to J dock.

Quincy very professionally brought Dyssel around the east side of I, where a throng of ARC participants cheered Dyssel’s arrival, accompanied by the (very loud) horns of the superyachts parked on I.

Despite their propeller failure, and thanks to Quincy, Dyssel enjoyed their arrival rum punch alongside their welcome party and toasted to their Atlantic crossing.

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Elsewhere around the marina, boats are jockeying around in their berths, some going to the boatyard like the American-flagged Ekaterina, who will spend some time on the hard while it's skipper heads home for the holidays. Other yachts, having enjoyed their stay in Saint Lucia, are off for further adventures down island, like the Swedish yacht Blå Ellinor, who checked out of the marina earlier this morning.

But most participants - and indeed the marina itself - are gearing up for the first really big event of the ARC Saint Lucia programme, the IGY General Manager's Party tonight on the lawn near J dock. Simon Bryan, GM himself, will be in attendance to welcome the fleet to the festivities tonight, which get underway at 6pm. 

The event will be followed up by live music on the Boardwalk Bar from 8pm until late.


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