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Portsmouth Starters About to Set Sail



It’s been a mellow week in Portsmouth for the three ARC Europe boats departing for Bermuda from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. It’s also been a rainy week.

“We can’t wait for the weather to warm up!” said the crew of the Tartan 4100 First Light. They arrived on Thursday into Ocean Yacht Marina (formerly known as Ocean Marine Yacht Center, World Cruising Club’s marina partner in Porsmouth). The guys were in full foul-weather gear, arriving after dawn in the pouring rain. They’d sailed south from Long Island Sound, stopping only briefly in Cape May, then continuing offshore to Portsmouth.

“It was chilly, but we had a fantastic sail south,” they added. “Wind and seas behind us, we were just flying!”

First Light’s shakedown was certainly good preparation for the upcoming Atlantic crossing. In fact, they had the shortest shakedown of any of the 3 Portsmouth starters.

“I left California in August,” said David Nichols, skipper of Blue Mist, a Pearson Vanguard, and the smallest yacht in the fleet at 32-feet. We sailed out to Hawaii, then back to California, down the coast of Mexico and Central America, through the Panama Canal and all the way up here! Some 2,500 miles of it I did solo.”

Nichols races Blue Mist often in the Pacific Cup, a race to Hawaii from the San Francisco area. “It’s like the Trans-Pac,” explained David, “but a lot less serious. They’d never let a 32’ Pearson in the Trans-Pac!”

Merlyn of Poole, a UK-flagged Oyster 45, wound up in Portsmouth for the winter after circumnavigating with World ARC last year and sailed over 30,000 miles in just over 15 months.

“It was actually a two-year cruise,” said owner Jonathan Crowe. “Jenny and I left the UK to cross Biscay to make it to Las Palmas for the ARC. Then we did World ARC from St. Lucia. On the return, 15 months later, we sailed north to the US with ARC USA and spent a summer in Cape Cod before leaving the boat here in Portsmouth the following winter. Now it’s time to take her home!”

Merlyn of Poole’s round-the-world adventure was merely a pause in Jenny and Jonathan’s life, not a full-on retirement. “She’s the smallest Oyster you can buy!” joked Jonathan. “World ARC was great for us - enough time to complete the circumnavigation, but not so much that we can’t return to the real world now once we get the boat home.”


After several days of boat preparations - Merlyn of Poole only went back in the water on Friday after her winter hibernation - the three yachts of the ARC Europe Portsmouth fleet are set to depart this morning (Sunday). The passage of several cold fronts over the past week (which brought the unseasonably cold and rainy weather) had delayed the planned Saturday start. But with a shorter passage than the BVI fleet, they should have more than enough time to catch up before arriving in Bermuda, and a good weather forecast should make for pleasant sailing.

Follow the fleet as they sail out of the Chesapeake and offshore on worldcruising.com/arc_europe.

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