BCR Yachts, Luxury Yacht Charter and Sales

Here is their log from November 29th:

Well firstly apologies to those who have been waiting for our first log, we have had a bit on this week.

As you may know Holo Kai is an Oyster 72 built at SYS, and completed just over a year ago. She has a cruising specification perfect for Mediterranean cruising. However this does require some innovative ideas from the foredeck crew when it comes to flying big spinnakers offshore - still at least they can have ice in their drink when they've finished wrestling with ripstop.

An introduction to the crew:

Chase Leavitt [Chasé, The Ultimate] (USA) (The Boss, Red Watch)
Chase is happiest on deck, close to the action, preferably with a scotch and water on standby.

Gavin Print [G, Gavo, Bruce] (GBR) (Captain, Red Watch Leader)
Has run the boat since she was new. Built a reputation amongst the ARC fleet based on big hats and dance floor shenanigans.

Mark Tighe [Horse, The Bruce] (IRL) (Navigator/Tactician, Blue Watch Leader)
Renown buzzer and offshore headbanger, after years in the rigging Horse is getting used to life in the afterguard, but will still grasp any opportunity to get out on the end of the spinnaker pole in the style of an Irish spider monkey with a kiwi accent.

Nikki Harris [answers on a postcard] (GBR) (Regular First Mate, Chef, Blue Watch)
Knows the boat inside out. Is obsessively organized and clean. Feeds us well, keeps us all in check and usefully can hear an ant hiccup at a thousand paces.

Charlotte Combes [Char, Chardog, Magic, Guns] (NZL) (Regular Deckhand, Blue Watch)
Lettuce aficionado and reluctant stewardess. After sessions in the Las Palmas gym Char has been showing up the boys with feats of strength and the strongest kiwi accent.

Julia Van Berkel [Julz, Júlia] (NZL) (Shares Chef and Deck duties with Nikki, Blue Watch)
Purveyor of fine food in outrageous quantity. New to sailing, Julz is learning fast as we keep giving her the wheel when it all goes 'Pete Tong'

Ed O'Connor [Morris, Bruce] (IRL) (Bowman, Blue Watch)
A student of the School of Bruce and chief disentangler of foredeck knitting. His hollow legs mean that no matter how much food comes up from the galley the slops bucket is rarely needed.

Ryan Houston [Housty, The Hoff, Hoffy, Bruce] (NZL) (Helmsman, Red Watch)
Has an uncanny ability to improve previous best boat speeds, seemingly without effort. Already the girls of St Lucia are forming a line to stroke his chest hair.

Per Anders Emilson [PA, The Admiral] (SWE) (Resident Linguist, Red Watch)
A very welcome last minute addition to the crew, and a Lieutenant Commander in the Swedish Navy as well. He's always willing to assist Chase in the Happy Hour countdown clockwatch.

Our preparations went well as the boat arrived in Las Palmas in good shape. Whilst the boys spent the week rigging the boat up as an offshore racer the girls carried out a very thorough provisioning despite the best efforts of El Corte Ingles. G was seen to breathe again when the new symmetric spinnaker finally arrived and Heeb from Mastervolt magiced two new chargers aboard at the last minute after suspected dodgy shorepower killed the originals.

Sunday 25th brought grey skies and 20-25kt winds for the start. The Oyster yachts formed up Red Arrows style for a photo (with us Red 5). Unfortunately the helicopter made a 'no show' due to engine problems.

With 5 minutes to go sails were unfurled, the engine turned on and game faces put on. Horse called an excellent start at the committee boat end that saw us arrive on the line a couple of seconds after the gun carrying good speed and right on the hip of our sister ship Kealoha 8. We must have made an impressive sight. Certainly a scary one for the skipper who decided to start on port tack with no boat speed directly in the path of 2x 48 tonnes of Oyster traveling at 8 knots on starboard. With no where to go there was a slight exchange of paint. Apologies to Kealoha, we hope their sat comms remain intact. Holo Kai sustained slight chafing of the mainsail clew and a blue bow stripe. Despite the incident Kealoha and Holo Kai emerged on the left side of the course to lead the fleet of 230 boats southward.

Those first few hours were tricky as we got to grips with new rigging setups and sail plans in lumpy seas and 30-35 kts of breeze. Boat speed peaked at 15 kts as we rounded the south tip of Gran Canaria on the edge of the acceleration zone. Unfortunately during the first night we found a four hour patch of light air that saw us drop to the back of our class (where they using their engines?). By morning though we were going well again with the red and yellow striped MPS 'Trojan' flying.

Day 2 and 3 saw daily runs of 209 miles and 207 miles. 9th position became 6th, became 5th. The crew settled into the watches and got used to the feeling of a big heavy boat being driven hard. Off watch periods were punctuated with calls to the foredeck to snuff the spinnaker until we solved the problem of the spinnaker pole tripping unprovoked. High boat speeds and large following seas prevented any fishing. After a foray on the foredeck on the third day Per Anders sustained a bruised hip. Apparently Nikki's painkillers are working well but he will definitely be on light duties for a few days.

Early on day three the familiar call came to drop the Trojan. This time however with the take down line wrapped around the spinnaker snuffer sock, a letterbox drop was required. The crew galvanized before my eyes as lines were fed between the boom and the mainsail so that the air would be squeezed out of the kite as we pulled it in. Smiles and a feeling a satisfaction all round. As dusk approached we took in the poled out genoa and hoisted our new 410+ square metre symmetric spinnaker the aptly named 'Big Red', emblazoned with our warrior logo. Downwind speeds increased and with 18 hours pushing hard we moved up to 4th after a daily run of 230 miles (a 9.6kt average).

This morning (day 5) didn't start so well. In 11 knots of wind our beloved Big Red blew out spectacularly for no clear reason. The tidy up went well but we all felt very frustrated as without Big Red those big numbers would be hard to repeat. The genoa was poled out and a slightly chafed spinnaker guy repaired. Nikki appeared with an excellent salmon lunch to cheer us up and in better spirits the Trojan went up. Hoff worked us up to some good speeds and heads were up again. Sadly not for long as the Trojan went bang in 19 knots of breeze just before dusk. With plenty of practice the clean up went smoothly again but Chase was not smiling - highly unusual but clearly justified.

We've looked at our weather predictions and navigation plans and still think we can defend our fourth place with white sails, provided we stay away from light winds. We have our fingers crossed and a determination to push on and still get a good result. And if all else fails we do still have the mustache growing competition to look forward to.

Gavin

23:55 29th Nov 2007