Teething troubles on the ARC!

Wednesday 28th November

We are almost 3 days into the Atlantic crossing now, and it's been a little challenging so far! Everyone on board is ill, bar one person. We think it might actually be a bug, rather than sea sickness (we ate in some dodgy places recently!). That is bringing morale down a bit, which is a shame, but as we head south the weather is warming and the winds have become steady and the sea is not too rough, so that's helping.

The start line in Las Palmas was chaotic, with 200 boats trying to get away and the whole thing a bit messy! We got away safely though and headed out into quite heavy seas/wind. The wind then died right off and we had to motor for 8 hours, so the conditions now are good in comparison. Everyone else had to motor too apparently.

We threw the fishing line out the back yesterday - felt a tug and then the line snapped! The breaking strain on the line is 70kg, so we are curious to know what we snagged! We will throw another line in and see what we catch.

We put up the genneker yesterday. That was going very well until the halyard that holds it up frayed through and the whole lot fell in the water! We fished it out and have it ready to go again, but as I write this it is nearly night, so we will have to wait for daylight tomorrow.

We also have wear on the pole to hold out the jib into the wind, I think the fittings on the mast are upside down and the aluminium end on the pole is wearing on the steel mast ring. We will try the pole upside down tomorrow. So we have the standard mainsail and jib flying for the night. Not quite as fast, but over 3 weeks, it won't make much difference to our progress.