Day 1- ARC Portugal
The start of the sailing! With glorious sunshine we were all up early and managed to cross the starting line on time. I say on time, because we hung back a little to cross the lone with the cruising chute hoisted. We had a great sail down the Plymouth Sound, only to lose the wind as soon as we cleared it. We eventually had to resort to the engine when it became clear we might never get past the Eddystone Light. However after only another 40 mins, the engine was off and we started to try and catch up. It was also the first chance to use the Hydrovane wind steering for a passage, and it is brilliant!
The rest of the day was good sailing much of it with the chute up. As evening came, the chute was dropped, but by the early hours the sails were flopping around in the light swell, and as the watch was tired we again used the engine for a couple of hours. As the sun came up, out came the chute, which helped us to log 123nm for the first 24 hours.
Freebooter 