Hamble to Las Palmas 2010

Part one of the delivery trip from Hamble to Las Palmas for the start of the ARC 2010 is now complete.

We left Hamble on Saturday 9th October with a dream forecast of North Easterly winds to push us South. The forecast held true (for once!) and we sailed for the the first 3 days in 20 to 25 knot North Easterly winds, moderate seas, and sunshine until reaching the north of Portugal. The bay of Biscay has never been so good to Lancelot with Portugal's coast being just as pleasent, athough a lack of breeze did ruin our ability to sail and we ended up motering down to our first stop in Cascais.

On arrival in Cascais we met up with some friends on two of the Farr 65's sailing across to Antigua next month, and of course found a nice drinking hole to spend the first night in!! :-)

Below is some short footage of our trip so far.... we hope you enjoy it! After a re-fuel and re-water we will head off again in the morning and update when we get down to Las Palmas.

All the best

Jacko, Mick and Chris..... and of course Lancelot!!

Part two of our trip from Hamble to Las Palmas for the start of the ARC 2010.

We departed Cascais in sunshine and hot weather and also in the company of some friends on a Swan 48 called Snow Wolf, with whom we stayed with for the first couple of days, until the wind picked up a touch and we pulled ahead with the spinnaker up.

Most of the trip down to Las Palmas involved us motoring (in fact just over 550 of the 695 miles!). This however did give us a chance to top up the tans and enjoy the dophins that followed us for much of the trip. Also we had a good chance to look at the live aboard aspects of Lancelot and make a few improvements! Diesel was always in our mind as it was quite a long trip to motor, luckly as we had 17 hours of great spinnaker reaching, we headed into Las Palmas Marina on Wed 20th October with 20ltrs of deisel in a can and a smidgen left in the tank!

Our friends on Snow Wolf arrived in Las Palmas at 0300hrs on the 21st however they had a little bit more of an eventful finish than us, as they ran out of diesel just off the entrance to the marina. Very good seamanship from Matt Michell and the crew though as they sailed into the marina and parked onto the customs dock in the dark.

One month left in Las Palmas now until the trip across the Atlantic with the ARC 2010!!!!

If anyone is down in Las Palmas over the next month please do look us up!!

Jacko, Mick Chris and Lancelot