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Chance Encounter - Chance encounter elan 434 Arc 2016 - day 11 and 12 Champagne Sailing and Difficult conditions



 The last two days have seen a real mix of conditions for Chance Encounter. When we last checked in Adrian had caught the Dorado and we were settling down to eat it. Poseidon apparently has quite the sense of humour as whenever we set up for a really fancy meal, he sends a series of squalls at us. So for most of Wednesday night/Thursday morning we played "connect the dots" linking breeze from squall to squall (or as Rigs says "squoo" to "squoo"). Our last squoo was a real wet one late Wednesday morning, where the rain was strong enough for Rob to take a full shower on deck - luxury!

The rest of Wednesday (Day 11) was champagne sailing again....15-18 knots on a beam reach (wind 90 degrees to the side of the boat)...a very fast point of sail that had us stonking along at 8.0-8.6 knots directly at St. Lucia.

Unfortunately, the breeze we expected to come through from the north after our turn past the slow high pressure system never materialised. Our forecast Thursday morning was quite disappointing - the fast reaching route from the north has all but dried up...we blame Rambler 88, the fastest boat racing here, who took a similar northern route to us and set a new ARC course record when they finished yesterday (congrats guys!)...they must have used up all the good breeze! Fortunately we have our intrepid navigator - Doug "Freddy" Cuming on board, who has plotted out a new route for us.

So the rest of Day 12 has been quite painful as we battle through light and choppy seas. The gennaker is up, but with the confused waves and lack of horsepower to drive us through, the sails and rigging have just been slapping around a whole lot, making lots of noise and generally not getting us very far. For those of you tracking us at home you'll have seen that our nearest competitors in "G" division have caught up quite a bit, particularly the boat "Susan". We're still first in the division and doing very well against some of the bigger and faster boats, but are feeling the heat from behind.

Until tomorrow,

the crew of Chance Encounter

Rob, Doug, Adrian and Rigs

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