Brainstorm - Regatta’s are won at night

Yesterday started sunny as usual but with the trade winds seriously picking up to 25 knots. With the wind- and wave angle unchanged this enables us to ramp the Rhapsodie up to 9 knots over ground. Perfect cards to ensure our advantage over the I Neverland and What’s Next.

After laying down our hooks with the fish we quickly found another goal for the day; doubling our advantage over the competition. For this we need focus and motivation so we turned to classical music for the day. Starting breakfast with Vivaldi’s four seasons we quickly escalated the volume and intensity with Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Grieg while Philippe inspired us with some daring regatta stories. By the end of lunch we’d ramped up to the heavyweights of Bach and Strauss. I could only imagine the terror of the Caribbean locals, relapsing into Campagnie des Arms and VOC terror, at the sight of a French/Dutch vessel, shouting along with their war drums.

Barbados would be first. With 50 nautical miles in between they might hear us but at a mere 340 meters high we’d doubt they’d see us. They’d also be last Philippe stated. We just need to keep this up throughout the night. The next morning our advantage will be to much to handle, in speed but most certainly also in moral. The night went as expected, doing between 7 to 9 knots and we only had to remove the code-0 for a couple of rainless squalls.

Today we sail in silence, recharging for a midnight arrival at 3 am Saint Lucia time. As this would be 5 am Rhapsodie yacht time, we (JM, Philippe and moi) started lobbying to adjust our clocks accordingly. However this is met with hard resistance from camp Ann as it means less time between the breakfast, brunch, apperatieve, lunch, apperatieve and dinner schedule. JJ, Julian and Menno remain neutral in fear of having to make their own food (and pik straf for one). Philippe and I made showed our diplomatic skills in preparation of a full English breakfast. This gesture was received well. Only to hand her a handwritten, double dated and signed ultimatum for dinner at 4 or 6, respectively boat or Sint Lucia time. Our “neutral Napoleon” JJ added fine print to the back “in agreement of Caribbean times we adjust drinking hours accordingly”

After the official signing we agreed with a majority that Caribbean drinking hours are all day if there is proper motivation. For instance the signing of an ultimatum…

All good laughs aside we are passing Barbados, well ahead of schedule, unable to see it. Unfortunately, arriving at night, we also expect to see little of Saint Lucia’s charismatic mountains, towering over the finish line in Rodney Bay. We have receive confirmation that there will be a welcome comité bearing fresh fruits, rum punch and a photographer with a bright flash. Menno and I in doubt about inflating the dingy, writing brainstorm on the side, to cross the finish line with the Dutch flag, we took from the brainstorm, in hand.

Last laugh then. All ARC participants who arrive before Monday morning are invited for a “sunset cruise on a yacht” Monday afternoon.