Over 70 ARC Portugal participants and guests gathered last night at the bar of the Monte Real Yacht Club here in Bayona for the Leg 1 Prizegiving, followed by a fine dinner of seafood paella in the Dining room. Awards were presented to the winners of each class as well as fun spirited prizes for closest ETA competition and the infamous Smiley Miley competition. Vice Commodore of the Yacht Club Alejandro Retolaza and Marina Manager Miguel Riviero both attended the prize-giving and presented the awards to the winners.
Charlie Baynes’ Hanse 430 ‘Webster’ claimed overall first position in Class A on Leg 1, closely followed by the Hallberg Rassy 43 ‘Quirine’ in 2nd and Stephan Cooke’s Nordship 43 ‘Nina’ in 3rd. The smaller boats in Class B proved the quickest overall with the two Belgian owned boats taking the first and second place. The Beneteau First 35’ Yacht ‘Leviathan II’ took 1st owned by Marcel Aertssen followed by Eric Goethals’ X-34’ ‘Idefix’. Yacht Serendipity took the 3rd place position in Class B. The multihull division with only two entries was won by David Caves’ Broadblue 385 ‘Infinite Dream’.
On every stage of the Rally there are also fun prizes on offer for an array of other reasons other than just results. John & Joyce Easteal on ‘Starblazer’ won the ETA competition for being the boat to have the closest guess to their arrival time into Bayona, being a mere 13mins and 50seconds off their actual arrival time!
‘Serendipity’ picked up a bottle of wine for guessing the mileage driven by the rally team on their way from Porto to Bayona, as did ‘Quirine’, who guessed the closest mileage driven by the team from Plymouth to Cowes.
A warm welcome was also given to the crew onboard Casamara who are joining the rally here in Bayona having taken part in Rally Portugal before, they are looking forward to yet another fantastic cruise down the South coast of Portugal with their beautiful Discovery 55’.
The meal was a fine selection of tapas style starters to wet the appetite followed by a hearty seafood Paella which went down very well with some fine vino blanco.
The boats will depart Bayona early tomorrow morning on Leg 2 of the Rally, which will take them across the Spanish border and into Portugal for the first time. Light head winds are predicted for the first part of the 55 nautical mile trip south to Povoa de Varzim, however it is due to shift to a more favourable angle by around lunchtime.