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| | Transatlantic
ARC 2001 - starts on
25th November 2001
The crew started to gather in Las Palmas one week prior to the start, and during
this time visited Las Palmas and helped with the provisioning of the boat. The crew comprised 9 guests,
together with Julian as Captain and Magali as Cook/Mate.
The guests came from very different
backgrounds, ages and experiences and were all expecting different things from the Transatlantic.
However, at the start, we all agreed on 3 main objectives for the crossing:
1. To sail all the
way from Las Palmas to the Caribbean (and not use the engine)
2. To steer all the
way (and not use the autopilot)
3. To have a friendly and fun passage.
Tanguy,
Alex, Nick, Julian, Paul, Jean, Andrzej, Henrick,
Fabiola, Magali and Roger before the ARC start.
The race
started on Sunday the 25th of November. It was a real adrenalin rush,
with the excitement building as each boat left the marina to head for the start
area, tooting horns and waving to the crowd on the pier heads.
The ARC start consists of an imaginary line between a moored
committee boat and a fixed point on the land. There's a countdown, a gun, and
then 220-odd boats try to find a way across without crashing. That's the theory.
In practice it's near mayhem, with boats milling around everywhere. Julian took
the helm and we cautiously waited till it was safe to cross, some 2 or 3 minutes
after the gun.
With the cruising chute up, we rapidly joined the bigger
boats leading the way out. An hour out, and Gran Canaria was merely an outline
behind us, with a forest of sails scattered across all horizons.
| We spent the first day heading due south, more so than most,
which meant the sea was soon ours alone. On day two we gybed south west, then on
day four we gybed south again. The wind had been unexpectedly strong, force 5 to
7 non-stop, and the seas constant big rollers, so steering has been demanding on the
crew's concentration levels. High speeds surfing down waves have been
gleefully shouted out by the helm - first the high of 13 knots, then Andrzej
with 14.2 and ultimately Nick with 15.2. Tanguy's quote "While you guys are
sitting eating crisps, I'm doing 12 knots" had become one of the
catchphrases of the crew.
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The
afternoon of the start
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We had fantastic daily runs with an average of 200
miles per day achieved for the first 10 consecutive days. After only 5 days at
sea, we reached the 1,000 nautical miles milestone, and celebrated the event
with some champagne. The wind had started to ease from day 4, but was still a
constant 20 to 25 knots. During this time we goosewinged, with the genoa on our
spinnaker pole on one side and with the main with reefs going in and out on the
other side of the boat.
Tanguy and Alex had designed a program on
the computer that allowed us to follow the other boats' progress. It was very
interesting and exciting to see how Northern Child was doing compared to the
other competitors. Since the start, our tactic was to go South as much as
possible in order to catch the trade winds and the daily position report
was always very encouraging.
| After the first 10 days we slowed down a bit with
lighter winds and flukey changes in direction, so we hoisted the spinnaker and
trimmed hard for three days. The sailing was beautiful - the sea much calmer and
a perfect blue, the sun baking hot and the nights starry.
Flying a spinnaker is
a demanding and exciting way to sail. To a landlubber, the fact that two of our
crew could find standing and saying "Wind!" (the winch) and
"Stop!" to each other non-stop for hours a pleasure, might seem
bizarre, but we didn't think so.
Our personal crossing target of 15 days was driving us on - during the whole journey, we have
concentrated on sailing the best we can, and having the maximum fun.
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Tanguy
trimming
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Fabs
winding
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But we've also:
... winched people up the mast armed with cameras
... had mid-Atlantic manicures from Fabiola
... consigned much of Jean's ropey Olympics T-shirt collection to the depths
... eaten lots of nice food (we even almost had the lasagne Paul had been
promising since the UK)
and watched one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer each evening on the DVD!
During the last couple of days we were back to a poled out
genoa as the wind picked up again, the mileage to go to St Lucia decreased and
everyone started searching for land. We arrived at night, of course, in St
Lucia on Monday, the 10th of December, after 15 days and 14 hours at sea. We
were all very glad to arrive, having achieved all the objectives that we had set
ourselves at the start.
From the time of our arrival, we switched
to the Caribbean rhythm. Most of the crew went to a hotel and enjoyed the comfort of sleeping in a
non moving bed. The first night in the bar ended up with almost all the crew being thrown in the
marina swimming pool! We had our obligatory meal at Spinnakers on the beach, where some people
managed two hamburgers, and we discovered a Beken Photograph of Northern Child on the wall!
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Spinnaker's
beach - St Lucia
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The crew started to head off back to normal life, leaving only five guests (Roger, Paul, Tanguy, Fabiola and
Henrik) to join Northern Child in slipping out of unseasonably (and unreasonably)
rainy St Lucia and heading for Martinique for a week's cruising. It was a very
enjoyable week and we all appreciated being able to drop an anchor overnight in
a lovely quiet anchorage. Swimming from the boat was a real treat.
 | After visiting Fort De France, we returned to St Lucia for
the prizegiving, where we were awarded 2 prizes: a book of St Lucia to thank all
the radio net controllers (of which we were one) and secondly a cup of St Lucia
and a trophy for the fourth position in our class. A great reward for the whole
crew and for all the effort that everyone put in during the crossing.
Northern Child will participate in the ARC 2002, starting at
the end of November. Please click on the following link to get more information
about it, if you are interested in joining Northern Child: ARC 2002. |
Below
are some more pictures taken during the crossing. Click on each of these thumbnails to enlarge them.
Thanks to Roger, who provided most of the above copy. Also our thanks to Henrik and Roger who were
volunteered as watch-leaders! Finally a big thanks to all the crew, who put in a tremendous effort
to make the crossing a real success and who provided most of the pictures included on this page.
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