Running a 4 watch system
Our 8 person crew for the crossing was a mix of people. Some of us had done lots of racing, some had done lots of cruising and some had not done much sailing at all. Apart from Rob Green and myself, the crew consisted of Rob Drury, Roger Smith, Travis Green, Marie Gunderson-Briggs, Anita McKinley and Traci Ayris. We ran a 4 watch system with 2 on each watch. During the day we had 3 hours on watch, 3 hours on standby and 6 hours off watch. During the evening we had the same system with 2 hour rotations. As the ARC is very much a ‘cruisy’ race, the watch captains kept to the same watches and the crew rotated every day.
In Las Palmas preparations begin
I arrived in Las Palmas on Friday afternoon to meet my crewmates who had been arriving over the past few days and weeks. We did the usual lead up work of washing all the fruit and veggies and ensuring that we had no cardboard onboard to keep the cockroaches away. I did a rig check, tightened up any loose nuts, taped any spilt pins and smoothed off a few rough edges on the spinnaker exit boxes. Other jobs included getting our onboard laptop configured for Sailmail and weather information, and stowing enough food to feed a football team.
Racing or crusing division
The ARC is sailed in divisions based on size, hull configuration and style of racing. The racing division is raced under the IRC rule and allows for no motoring. The cruising division which we raced in allows for motoring, but this must be declared and a time penalty factor is imposed. There is also a multihull division and an open division. The racing class started at 12.40 on Sunday the 23rd of November, our start was at 13.00 so we had the opportunity to see what the race guys were up to. We started near the committee boat end and were 2nd across the line, but our better speed meant that we hit the lead straight away. The sight of almost 200 boats behind us was quite impressive and we slowly started reeling in the race boats. Everyone was buzzing and we were all looking forward to the challenge ahead.
Tactics are discussed
The ARC offers some interesting challenges. There are two trains of thought about which course to take. The traditional route is to sail south “until the butter melts” to get into the trade winds sooner. This will add a few hundred miles to the passage and you have to be sure that the trades have started for the season; otherwise you cover the distance for no gain. The alternative is to sail the thumb line, while covering less distance, you also stand a good chance of having lighter conditions. On X-To-Sea we chose the southern route, feeling that the trades were well established and the extra distance would be more than covered by better speed. This proved to be the right way to go, in week two a large percentage of the fleet north of us ended up becalmed for days.
Top speed at 22.5 knots
After some light conditions on the first night we got a little frustrated, but we were soon sailing in good breeze and settling into life onboard. We had our first little problem on the 3rd evening when the 9oz spinnaker blew out in a 35knot rain squall. I pulled the sail out of the forward sail locker a few days later but there was no way that it could be repaired onboard. This made the sail selection process much easier, we could use the 1.5oz spinnaker or the 1.5oz gennaker! Even though we encountered rain squalls through the course of the ARC, these normally gusted up to 35 knots for about 3/4 of an hour before ... |  | ... moderating back to the standard 20 to 25 knots. In most circumstances we kept the spinnaker up and did a bit of white knuckle steering. Even with 38 knots, the X-562 hand-led beautifully. Our top speed was reached by Rob at 22.5 knots just as we were leaving a squall in the first week. Marie was our fastest woman, clocking 17.5 knots. It was a pretty impressive achievement for someone who didn’t want to steer with the spinnaker up when we first started.
Thanks to our best cook Marie
With our relaxed watch system there was plenty of time to read, talk, sleep and relax. We enjoyed some fantastic food during the crossing with a two course dinner every night. Everyone did their part to help in the galley, but special thanks must go to Marie who came up with some wonderful creations. Whenever we reached a milestone during the crossing a special dinner was held around the saloon table to celebrate, with wine served at the quarter and three quarter waypoints across the Atlantic and champagne when we reached halfway.
The adrenalin gets flowing
The ARC uses a daily radio net for all boats to relay their positions and pass on information about the weather conditions that they are experiencing. Unfortunately, there were some problems with the Iridium link between the UK and USA for quite a few days, so getting our competitors positions was almost impossible. Because motoring is allowed in the ARC division, we had established at what stage we should motor. As I started to do some rough calculations on how we were going on corrected time, I realized that we may have made a mistake. The motoring time is multiplied by a factor; this had increased our corrected time considerably. As the West Indies drew closer, one of the crew heard some chat on the VHF radio from the two big Swans. We worked out that we were in touch with them and the decision was to push hard for the last day or so. We rotated the helms-person every hour to keep the drivers fresh instead of the usual watch system.
Land at sight after two weeks at sea
I cannot remember what time of the day it was, but everyone was very happy to see land after two weeks at sea. As St. Lucia got bigger, the crew showered and donned our tropical shirts for the finish. We sailed around Pigeon Island and into Rodney Bay where we sighted the finish line. As we arrived at the marina we were greeted by the ARC team who gave us our rum punch and congratulated us on being 11th yacht across the line behind the IRC racing yachts and the first to finish in the ARC division. We thought that they had made a mistake and looked around the empty marina for some big masts. About an hour and a half after we had tied up, the Swan 70 Dreamcatcher KM came into the marina. An hour after that, the Swan 62RS Albatros arrived, Manfred Kerstan had just completed his 10th ARC. He knew that motoring was heavily penalized in the ARC and did no motoring, because of this he beat us on corrected time in our division.
To anyone who dreams of doing the ARC, I recommend that you do it. I would like to say thanks to Rob Green and my X-to-Sea crew mates for making my crossing of the Atlantic Ocean a wonderful experience that I shall always remember.
Andrew Parkes
North South Yachting |
