Leg 1 Prizegiving at the Monte Real Yacht Club; Leg 2 gets underway

 The Rally Portugal participants gathered last night on the sunny lawn of the Monte Real Yacht Club here in Bayona for the Leg 1 Prizegiving, followed by a slap-up dinner of seafood paella in the restaurant. As well as the top-placed boats on corrected time each receiving awards, in keeping with the rally spirit several other prizes were awarded for the fun categories.

Scott & Julia Weston's Dufour 45 Performance Katerina claimed overall first position in Class A on Leg 1 with a corrected time of 4 days, 58 mins and 10 seconds. Only 1 hour 13 mins behind Katerina on corrected time in Class A was the Norweigan's Otto Hulbak & Kolbjørn Haarr's Hanse 461 Coral IV, with the Australian boat of Vaughan Wellington Viking coming in 3rd in class.

In Class B, 3rd and 2nd places were taken by the two Moody 44's in the fleet: Russ & Jaz Altendorff were 3rd with Enterprise, and in 2nd place were Ian & Sally Brearley on their boat Seraphina. 1st overall in Class B was claimed by Neil Langton & his crew John & Stella onboard the smallest boat in the fleet, the Hallberg Rassy 36 Plane Magic.

On every stage of the Rally there are also fun prizes on offer for an array of other reasons other than just results. Ian & Sally from Seraphina were the only boat to claim two prizes last night, receiving a local delicacy as a special prize, a cake from Santiago, for being the boat to have the closest guess to their arrival time into Bayona. The boats had to submit their arrival time estimations back in Plymouth - before they found out there was a 6 day delay in the Rally start date... so most estimations were clearly a long way out! Ian & Sally had unknowingly only put 'Friday midday' on their form - without mentioning which Friday of the year - so ended up having the closest guess at only 1.5 days of inaccuracy!

Gertha 4 picked up a bottle of wine and a Bayona mug for guessing the mileage driven by the rally team on their way from Porto to Bayona, as did Ailsa, who guessed the closest mileage driven by the team from Plymouth to Cowes.

Stephen & Lynne Farnsworth and their crew John & Peter onboard Scarlett Lady received a special mention and a prize of a plaque from the Bayona Yacht Club for sending in the most logs to the Rally website since the start of the event.

The prizegiving outside was washed down with some tasty tapas and local wines, and the crews then moved inside to the Yacht Club restaurant to sit down to a fantastic meal of seafood paella and more wine.

The boats departed Bayona early this morning on Leg 2 of the Rally, which will take them across the Spanish border and into Portugal for the first time. Light winds are predicted for the first part of the 55 nautical mile trip south to Povoa de Varzim, but stronger west or southwest winds are forecast to kick in around lunchtime, so the boats are attempting to get as far south as possible this morning. Another Rally dinner is planned for the boats' arrival into Povoa tonight.. the party continues!