Falcon - Crossing Day 1

Distance run 162 nautical miles; New Falcon speed record of 13.0 knots. Distance to Grenada 1998 nautical miles!

Friday 18 November; our D Day has arrived! All around Mindelo marina you can feel an electrical air of expectation, and no more so than on Falcon where our nervous energy levels have been turned all the way up to 11; one could say we are inwardly fizzing, outwardly buzzing, and generally effervescing!

On the theme of electrical energy, last night the skipper finally solved the wiring conundrum to provide power to our masthead Tricolour; I have awarded him a City & Guilds level 1 in marine electronics and, with apologies to Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber, re-christened our captain ‘Adrian and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamboat’!

Meanwhile, below decks, Bev has instigated a new snack rationing system for the next 2200 nautical miles; it’s called ‘hide it so the boys can’t find it’… we are in no doubt where the true power lies aboard Falcon for this crossing.

Our start to the leg was measured and calm, no more so because the boom did not try to disassociate itself from the gooseneck on the 5-minute gun as per Las Palmas! We hid at the back, let the Wacky Racers fight it out for bragging rights on the line, then steadily mossied ourselves up the fleet in our own time! The first miles of this leg were a right mixed bag of weather tricks; first calms, then acceleration zones, and back to calms with a sea state more confused than putting a workman in a toolshed full of spades and telling him to take his pick!

We are now broad reaching in 22-30 knots of wind. Most surprising for a sailboat, we also seem to be progressing in roughly the direction we want to go - this will not catch on I’m sure!