As a quick Rally news update the Bahamas fleet have all arrived in Marsh Harbour with Lee & Rachel there to meet them in some warm & sunny conditions. (Important to point out that Upward Wing had changed their plans and was sailing to Florida from the start.) Timing your arrival to enter the Man-O-War cut is important and only recommended for doing in the daytime. So some boats will have slowed down a little if they were coming in overnight in order to pass through at first light.
With everyone now in and settled they will be having a small prizegiving dinner tonight and we look forward to seeing what the results were from that leg. As a note we do not announce the results until the prizegiving evening. For the ARC Caribbean 1500 this will be on Friday November 18th here on the beach in Nanny Cay.
The BVI fleet are making some very quick progress and are starting to countdown the miles to the BVI. Both Isabelle & Lyall are here in Nanny Cay and the first of the arrivals are expected later this evening (Saturday), with the bulk of the fleet arriving on Sunday and Monday. It is really coming down to the wire with 4 boats in the first batch, will it be Jura, Phantom, Karina or Pure Elegance to cross the finish line first...we will see in just a few hours.
The Charter Boat Show has been going on the past few days in Nanny Cay with a marina packed full with beautiful catamarans. They have now all but gone and we can fit plenty more monohulls into the spaces they left behind. The Dockmaster, Brendan, is ready for you all the rally boats and looking forward to a splash of colour when all the rally flags are flying.
There is the new marina development going on here in Nanny Cay so to those returning it may not look too familiar, and for those new to Nanny Cay it will differ slightly from the cruising guides. During the day it's easy to identify with the large, heavy machinery working on it. With a closer look there is now some of the new floating pontoons in place and it won't be long before boats will start using that new space.
Rally control is ready, monitoring the trackers on the fleet viewer and listening out on VHF 72 for a call to action. Meeting the boats on the docks is always great fun, lots of noise and rum punch to celebrate the crews achievements.