Six days after we left Las Palmas, and we finally arrived in Mindelo, Cape Verde at 8.30 am on Saturday morning. Conditions for the trip overall were… interesting! For the majority of the passage, we had 20-25 knots of wind, some fairly rough seas (don’t look behind you) and squalls where the wind got well above 30 knots for a short while. But by Saturday morning as we approached the finish line, the wind finally began to die off and we slowly cruised into the harbour in 8 knots of breeze.
We made a boisterous start to Leg 1 in Las Palmas, where despite my best intentions, we took a racing line, reminiscent of my inshore racing days, cutting close to the Committee boat with a gaggle of similarly minded boats and crews. Only a few miles in though, the fleet soon spread out and we all found our own space and course to sail. Overnight we reduced sail, anticipating and seeing the first of a few heavy squalls which were a feature of the first few days. These arrive in a dark mass of clouds that travel quite quickly - easy to spot in daylight, a little less so at night when there was little or no moon. The high wind and heavy rain lasts for about ten to fifteen minutes usually, so we just rode ahead of them under reduced sail each time. Other boats were not so lucky. There were broken forestays (the boat was lucky to have two of them or the rig may have fallen down), spinnakers and other sails were torn or wrapped around the forestays, rendering them useless and one boat even had steering failure that must have made for some anxious moments.
Monday morning after leaving Las Palmas, we raised more sail and set Cassini up for true Trade Wind sailing with the big head sail poled out on the long spinnaker pole and the inner staysail on the other side. With one reef in the main sail, we moved along at a steady 7-8 knots. Cassini’s hull speed is actually limited to 9 knots; that’s a feature of how long our water line length is for the scientists amongst you; however much sail we put up, we can’t really exceed that for long periods without expecting to do some damage to the rig. With all the additional weight in food, spares and other gear, I don’t really expect to sustain 9 knots on passage very often! Having said all that, our top speed over the passage was often well over 12 knots, surfing on some big waves, which we did quite a lot of in the first few days.
Despite the rough conditions, we arrived with minimal damage to repair here in Mindelo. We’ve had one of the guard rails straightened (you can see it before the damage in the picture below of the start), as it got bent over under the weight of our spare fuel and water cans when we were hit from the side by a large wave during one squall. But otherwise, only the usual wear on ropes which we’ve replaced, or re-covered with the dyneema ‘sleeves' we carry for just such eventualities.
Once tied up, we did the usual check-in with the Rally organisers who handled the customs and immigration part and the marina staff who organise the fresh water and power for us on the jetty. By the afternoon we were ready to celebrate our arrival, and settled down to burgers and beer in the floating bar [just a bit too conveniently] sited at the end of the pontoon. We were slowly joined by many of our new friends on other boats that either preceded us or arrived afterwards.
On Monday we all took a tour around the island on a bus organised but the Rally team. Like other islands in the Atlantic, these are volcanic in origin, quite barren for the most part and people here do wonders to eke out a living from the land. There are just two months a year when it rains here and they have to make the most of it, but it’s hard graft.
My sister Sarah arrived on Sunday, in time for the official Welcome party, and is looking forward to the trip, if a little anxious about what to expect on the longer trans-Atlantic leg. Class 4P and 4G at Salisbury Cathedral school can look forward to some updates from Mrs Payne during the trip I’m sure.
The weather forecast at the moment looks a little lighter than the trip down here; we’ll find out more detail at the Skippers briefing on Thursday. Looking forward to Leg 2 now…
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