Day 1 Spicy burritos and Gale force winds

We always pick good weather windows to ensure we have a easy start to a long passage but with the ARC we had to leave with a forecast of 23-28 knots, 30 knots gusts and bad swell. We were very conservative with 3 reefs and the main which was lucky because we got 30-40 knots in the acceleration zone with a top wind speed of 42 knots and top boat speed of 17 knots surfing down a wave. Waves were huge as well, knocking the boat quite badly at times, with our trusty autopilot complaining that the rudder was hard over. We crossed the acceleration zone and ended up in a wind hole at 2am with less than 10 knots which took a while to sail out off. Anyway glad that is done! now we are in Blue skies in 20-25 knots with 2-3m seas. Much more comfortable.. we likes 🙂 oh, we also had spicy burritos from Nopal in las Palmas, yum yum. They didn’t cause the gale force winds in case you were wondering.. or maybe they did 😉

Dans 2 cents
Never sailed in 42Kts wind/ 17knots boat speed, while warming up a burrito in the microwave.

Jessy’s corner
We knew the first few days were going to be rough but the first day was definitely rougher than expected (let’s see about the coming days). A minor emergency happened when a huge wave caused my bathroom door to slam shut and lock from the outside. Luckily Chet’s technical skills came in handy and he worked his magic to open the door again. Dan and Chet must be happy to have a non-stinky Jessy on the boat now 😉