After 6 days from the start the ARC+ fleet is making good progress towards St Lucia, and the crews are celebrating and enjoying the Atlantic crossing on board their yachts in many different ways. For some it’s flying a spinnaker, others it’s catching a fish or practicing celestial navigation
Pictures and logs from the Fleet:
After the start from Mindelo the wind is getting lighter and many boats decided to head south to catch the stronger trade winds:
“The start of this leg on Wednesday all ran smoothly with a great view of all the boats leaving Cape Verde. We lost the wind coming around the neighbouring islands and like a few other boats in the surrounding area turned on the motors for an hour to get us out to open sea” Adele1
“Over the summer we have sailed Shepherd Moon from 58 degrees North to our current latitude of 16 degrees North with the single aim of putting ourselves comfortably in the tradewind belt. The winds that drove commerce for the centuries before Amazon turned up and made us think that even next day delivery is a bit tardy (OK, so there was a bit of a gap between the days of sail and Amazon but a bit of artistic licence never goes amiss). So here we are, smack bang in the middle of the tradewind belt and all we have is a mere zephyr of a breeze.”Sheperd Moon
We have just decided to head south to try to pick up stronger winds. Hopefully the gamble will pay off. Like everything else in sailing, it's a slow game. Charm
Boats visited from dolphins:
“We have for a second night running had a visit from dolphins that flashes up in phosphorous (morild in Norwegian). They jump in front of the bow and in the nearby waves and sometimes comes in looking like torpedoes” Abraxas3
Only one boat is still in Mindelo, Helmi; they repaired the mainsail but they're still waiting for an alternator sparepart, that should be delivered in a week.
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