Aquavita - Day 20 we'll miss the party

Yesterday we received an email from ARC Rally Control that the social events start on Monday 6th Feb with a sunset cruise welcome party. Our current ETA is Tuesday AM on the 7th - we were going to miss the welcome party! So we sent an email to rally control asking if it's possible to postpone the party to Tuesday, as this year's fleet of 30 is small and several other boats will be arriving around the same time as us. We received a courteous reply today explaining why they couldn't move the welcome party, and that:

"Based on current ETAs we will have 18 boats arrived in time to attend the Welcome Party, You are currently the 19th boat, with an ETA of Monday evening. We hope that you receive some good conditions in the final days so you can attend all the parties you wish."

We could almost picture us arriving into Rodney Bay just as the sunset cruise boat was leaving the dock. What do we do? At an emergency crew meeting over lunch we brainstormed various ideas, such as putting up both the jib and code 0 sails in a butterfly formation to move our boat faster, maybe add the blister on the outside of the jib to help with the cruising speed? Will that tip us over our top speed and cause grave concerns to our onboard safety officer? One after the other the innovative ideas to increase boat speed were shot down. It was decided in the end that we would hold our own sunset cruise party as we arrive in St Lucia on Monday, and pull up alongside the party boat and play louder music than them. Maybe the fleet members will jump ship to ours and join our party instead. Jason's already picked out the songs to play: "I knew you were waiting (for me)", followed by "Get the party started"...

Author: the party crashers