I'm writing our first blog from the nav table of Mad Monkey, on our first night shift of ARC 2017; every 10 seconds being thrown off the chair as the boat heels from side to side! (An instant reminder of what life at sea is really like!) We are having a great sail, coming into the night with 30+kts of wind and sailing somewhat comfortably without a headsail and with a first reef in the main sailÂ… And we've just broken the boat speed record with 15.5kts!
Today we had a great send-off from the marina with crowds on both sides of the exit, definitely made us feel like we are doing something special. We thought we would all wear monkey masks so we could hide our soppy tears, or perhaps it was to remind people that we are indeed the MAD MONKEYS! On that note --- we would all like to thank the yellow tops for their amazing work in Las Palmas - BRAVO to the team!
The start line lived up to expectations with mum and dad's racing background kicking in, as they watched the racing multihulls set off. Loud shouts of "jibe now", "pull the sheet quick" and "hold on tight!" were quick wake up calls to the crew members on board who got told we were in the cruising divisionÂ… However 'a start line is a start line!'
Seeing 200 yachts set off from a sunny island without doubt is an amazing sight, however as we reached the acceleration zone we started to see the not so nice side as we witnessed seeing 2 yachts tear their spinnakers directly through the middle and a few crash jibes along the way; this was a wake-up call which made us grow up and furl in the spinnaker.
Written by Josh