Our fastest speed Running repairs to
yet – 20.8 knots the spinnaker pole
Radar picture at centre of torrential rain Gentle sailing at sunset
storm – red means heavy, heavy rain!
Otherwise we continued with very gentle We could almost smell St. Lucia, but we
sailing, occasionally motoring at night when were going to arrive in the middle of the
there was no wind (we don’t carry that night. The weather had one last pop at us
Our night-time A tired, dishevelled,
much fuel so we had to be judicious with with a 38knot squall as traversed the gap arrival in St.Lucia but happy crew
our motoring.) between St. Lucia and Martinique. Then it
was around the tip of Pidgeon Island to the
Next day after a few hours sleep, with all
Finally, after yet another boat of rain squalls finishing line in Rodney Bay. We finished at
formalities completed we were ready to
we got into some decent settled trade 07.20 GMT (03.20 local time)
enjoy the hospitality of St. Lucia and also
winds about 500 miles east of St. Lucia and
welcome in the other boats as they finished.
really began to make fast progress, hitting a We downed sails and motored into the
new maximum of 20.8 knots, claimed by Bill lagoon and our marina berth. We were given
as he was on watch, but he had little to do a rapturous welcome even at that time in
with it as the boat was on auto pilot at the the morning. We were presented with rum
time (as it was for 99% of the crossing) punches and a big basket of fruit. It may
have been a slow crossing in 17 days (we
With all this speed something had to give were anticipating 12 -14 days), but we were
and it was the outer end of the bowsprit still 13th boat to finish, beaten by big 60 -80
holding the asymmetric spinnaker. A weld ft boats, and we were the first multihull by
gave way and tore the stainless steel end nearly 24 hours!
cap. Hurried repairs, by Bill using all his
rigging repair experience and we were soon
Well done to all the crew
on our way again
View from our masthead
8  MULTIHULL REVIEW : FEBRUARY 2009
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