The Bagheera team rise at the crack of dawn on the 22nd November full of anticipation and pre-race tremors, only to find that all the previous days of long working hours have left us with little to do but sit and relax until we get underway – never good for the nerves….
Our departure time of 10.15am arrives and we leave our berth and the marina with a great send off from our fuel quay friends with The Monkey Song from the Jungle Book blaring. We all promptly agree that we will adopt it as our new theme song!
Out on the water Team Bagheera decides that we should probably try and find out how the kite works. Yes folks, we really are a proper racing team!! None the less the bag goes up and then down just as fast with little to show for our efforts apart from finding out that the sail is black…ominous for our competitors to be sure.
On the start line we are a little surprised that it is not more hectic but the action picks up in the last minute and we pop off the start line just as the gun sounds, picking up speed at a good rate before hoisting the big angry black spinnaker and leaving our opposition in our wake. So we are racing team! It’s been a long time coming but Bagheera is finally racing.
The first afternoon is spent with Captain Simon and Peter, a veteran of three previous ARCs, attempting to turn their rag tag bunch of mariners into expert racing yacht helmsmen, with fairly promising results. We head inland toward Gran Canaria to take advantage of the winds streaming off the island. We sail under our main and kite, all goes smoothly, Bagheera bucks like a bronco each time the kite fills and we pass a very enjoyable afternoon racing.
By 9pm Team Bagheera with our two proper sailors and six very newly trained helmsmen, realise that we can no longer handle the spinnaker with winds regularly gusting above 25 knots. Stay Calm refuses to live up to its name and quickly put us in our place, racing past us during the course of the evening, no doubt with their spinnaker flying all the way.
The last couple of days have been spent putting up the spinnaker, the taking it down, finding out the boats and each others quirks, like Nic’s dream of being arrested because he had a sailors belt on while on land – he’s clearly not a sailor and must be detained?!? We are also a little concerned that it has only been 3 days and we have almost eaten all the chocolate, Captain that’s your doing were sure!
Right that’s us for now, tune in next time to find out just how big a tuna Kemal can catch on his new fishing rod and super fluro line…