Thank you very much for your support! I just found the time to write a report about our participation in the ARC. We have become very popular here! Although, our result was not the best – 6th place in our racing division, 8th – among all racers and 65th – among 220 yachts. We are constantly receiving visitors from other boats. Apparently, we are popular because: we were the smallest – 9 meters, we participated in a pair, and finished together with big yachts, and we were the fastest among the POGO, who were all bigger than us-36-40 feet! It took us 16 days and 20 hours, so this was my fastest transatlantic!
How was it? Very cool!)))) We squeezed 100% out of the yacht, we carried our largest 115 sqm A4 about 60% of out time, the small 80 sqm A4 took 30% of the time, the rest is a butterfly staysail on a spinnaker boom.
The main technical problems: the ring on the bowsprit is broken, the bowsprit shackle is broken as well – all because of the throwing. It took us a very long time to set up the autopilot – as a result, we put it on the true wind. The key problem was our weight-2,600 kg – we were very light, so every wave tended to push us into throwing. The solution to the problem was to take one reef on the mainsail and a huge sail in front – in order to shift the center of sail ahead. The genaker halyard was cut twice – it is being rubbed. The tack corner at the genaker was unfastened twice – once at night it was an emergency case – we caught it together! We broke the genaker twist, the fixing finger started flying out!
Before reaching 100 miles to Santa Lucia, algae plantations begin – this is a huge problem for us. We had two steering wheel feathers of a small area. As soon as something hits them, the efficiency drops significantly! At night, the yacht stopped being controlled, we thought the autopilot went out of order! In the morning, we found a huge skein of algae on the steering wheel, we took it off manually at 8 knots, and I even had to put my head in the water!
As we decided, we squeezed 80% out of the team because there were moments when we could use a larger sail, but because of fatigue we did not fix it. Shifts – 4 in 4 hours is the normal mode, I managed to get used to it by the 4th day. One person can be on watch. All front sails are on the Top Down twist, but it takes about 5 minutes to roll down 115 squares, and you do it when the wind is over 25 knots.
Meteorology. As we found out, we were almost the only ones who carried the genaker at night. The first problem was winding it on the forestay, with weak winds and waves, the second is wind gusts from under cumulonimbus clouds – up to 30 knots. We fought the gusts with the help of radar, tracking the trajectory of the clouds and reeling off the genaker in advance. The rest of the time we were dealing with trade winds and backstay maneuvering.
We were 100% in line with the tactics, making no mistakes, as it seems to me))) We went to the South – about 200 miles, in order to bypass the calm zones, then we were moving along the arc of a large circle – with backstays, changing tack, guided by the speed of convergence.
In this regatta, we implemented 3 crazy ideas: 1 – we did not take food with us. 2 – we did not take water. 3 – we did not take fuel))))). Just joking))! Food – we ate only from bags, pouring boiling water over. I took only 40 liters of water from the reserve + a 120-liter tank. Almost all of it was brought to the Caribbean – we used a desalination plant. It produces 5 liters per hour and can be put into operation manually. Fuel – our tank is designed for 60 liters + a canister for 30 liters. We brought everything back without spending a drop. The engine was started only before the marina. Frankly, there was not much sense in it, as we could go at a speed of 4.7 knots, and a power of 18 hp.
The batteries were charged using solar panels and a 300-watt hydro generator.
As promised, I made videos every day, but unfortunately, I can’t post them because of the slow Internet. I will definitely do it on my YouTube channel as soon as I return to Moscow – on December 30, as we still have to reach the Virgins.
