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Scarlet Oyster - blog day 2



Hi All,

Been a fairly busy 2 days since we started the ARC2014, the start went well for us and we were chuffed to be the first yacht over the start line! Leopard 3 soon took over the front running however!

We enjoyed a fresh run down the side of Gran Canaria, as the wind speed built to over 30 kn in the acceleration zone we elected to get the kite down to save any costly breakages in sight of the start, a few brave crews persevered with spinnakers however, Xanadu came storming past us, looking under control but well loaded up!

The wind shadow came into play we tried to stay to the east of it, but eventually got sucked in just before dark, my thinking was to stay on the East as the wind rotated to the NE and then find our way through whilst being well south of the island, the 0400 positions suggested it had not worked well for us )-: I wonder if the extra weight and windage of our pigeon passenger could have been a factor!

Anyway we hoped that out more southern position over Island Girl and Xanadu may pay off passing Tenerife and other islands also the wind files suggested better wind S of the rhumb too.

A great effort from the team overnight and today has seen us climb back up the rankings, it is clear there is a lot of competition in Racing B this year!

Had a close disaster with our running kite today when the snap shackle on the halyard fell apart, fortunately we were rigged for a quick drop and quick crew work recovered the spinnaker from the water undamaged.

The heavy AP was quickly put up on the other halyard in its place, Joe then got volunteered to do a rig check and recover the stb kit hal, clearly it is appropriate for the oldest guy on board to do these things! Top effort Joe!

Wind has been a bit fickle this evening, hope we don't go snaking down the rankings again!!!

All well on board and boat is 100%, new rudder is a bit different but we are getting to grips with it, it certainly has plenty of grip well done Jefa, pity Iberia Cargo delivered it 10 days late, this made last night a pretty tough training session on the job for the team, they have coped brilliantly and I have not driven since daylight this morning, so I am now a well rested skipper! Happy days!

All for now, night from team Scarlet!

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