Hello from Ruby Rose!
What a start! As I’m sure everyone else is reporting, conditions were
lively for the first day of the ARC. Swell was pretty big (I couldn’t tell
exactly how big- maybe 10 metres at times) and we got some excitement looking at
the speeds we were doing as we surfed down the bigger waves. Our previous record
was 11.5 knots- well, we smashed that with a whopping 15 knots! We chose to go
offshore to avoid the worst of the acceleration zone, but not sure how
successful this was: we still had gusts of 40 knots within the first few hours.
Unfortunately, we lost an avocado, a couple of mandarins and a mango off the
side, probably joining a fruit medley from many other yachts who didn’t secure
their netting quite tightly enough! Far more tragic was the loss of our bean bag
over the side- nooooo! I had big plans for that bean bag, the foredeck and a
good book- not that we’ve had the weather for lying around on deck thus far.
We, like many other boats I think, headed directly south to get out from
the lee of the Canary Islands, then jibed and took a west-south-west course. As
the winds have become more easterly, we’ve consequently been pushed further west
and at times slightly north of west, which isn’t really the direction we want to
go, but it will do for now. We wanted to jibe this morning and take a more
southerly course, but the GRIB files are showing stronger winds of 25 knots to
the south of us, so we shall remain on this heading for now.
Swell settled early hours of Monday morning and has been fairly consistent
ever since, at about 3 metres with the occasional bigger set, and the wind has
hovered around the 20 knot mark, gusting up to 30 when a squall- of which there
have been many- passes over.
After almost no sleep on Monday night, we all got some rest yesterday and
last night, so spirits are high on board- except for the fact that we’re all
still in oilies! The main reason we want to head south is to get into some
warmer weather, hopefully! I do NOT intend on spending the next three weeks in
my wet weather gear. If nothing else, it makes getting out of bed and onto deck
a 10 minute process at best!
We’ve been sailing with three reefs in since leaving Las Palmas and only
just shook them out this morning- and we’ve still averaged 6.6 knots so far!
Pretty good for our little 39 footer. May need to reef down again, as weather
quite squally at the moment.
Shall report back in a few days- hopefully things will be slightly more
comfortable by then!
Nick, Terysa, Neil and John