Start day, Altair aims to leave the dock by 1200 for a 1300 start. Our crew is nearly ready to leave but first several important tasks. Aaron must find a way to grind his Guatemalan coffee beans. Captain Clint needs to check weather, fill out some paperwork, return marina key cards. Leanne needs to secure fresh fruit and vegetables for the passage. I had a some Escudos (Cape Verde Dollars) left to spend. In the preceding days Clint, Marc and I had done work to repair leaking hatches and to experiment with rigging the whisker pole up to pole out our asymmetrical spinnaker in anticipation of the light winds we would have at our backs. Altair would have a limit of 1/3 or less the total distance to motor. The forecast was showing for light winds at least to begin the first 3 or 4 days. It was looking like we would have to use a lot of our motoring allowance early on in the race to reach the stronger "trade winds" further West and South of us.
After returning the key cards I set off to the Mercado Central to purchase the fresh food while Leanne attended to more cleaning and prepping of the interior of Altair. I would have the difficult mission of finding the items on the list, using up a heavy bag of Euro coins and some Escudos notes, and coming back with the correct change and receipts to show for it. My survival Spanish helped me find the right vendors (Cape Verde is Portuguese speaking country plus Creole), but even then I had many difficulties to over come. I knew that some items on the list would be impossible to find, but the salad greens and fresh fruit were abundant and purchasing them from street vendors was fun and gave a good "farm to table" vibe. Paying with Euros for this proved impossible as did getting change in Euros, and asking for a receipt incited bewildered looks.
Next stop at the Mercado "blue" was not successful. I could not find there "stinky cheese" , frozen pizza, or a spray bottle cleaner called "Vanish". Next i stopped into a gift shop full of African carved masks, paintings and tapestries to spend my last Escudos on some Cape Verde crafts. Now i only had to do the hot walk back to the boat in midday sun without any breeze. We had been alerted that this was an unusual period of no-wind in a place that regularly blows 25 to 30 knots in the windy/dry months November thru July.
Altair got ready and left the dock at Mindelo. She motored out to the course, headed up-wind and put up the mainsail. Our start plan of sailing below the line, tacking to sail above the line, and tacking putting up the genoa and racing toward the pin end of the line worked out well. The timing was good and we crossed the start line near the front of the fleet. In just a minute or two we passed the lead boats and began reaching toward the back of the multi-hull fleet that had started 15 minutes before our start. After the first hour of the race boats had spread over miles of the channel between Sao Vincente and the island to the North West of it. The light trade wind breeze was compressing
around the Cape Verde islands and so the wind was stronger here than it would be when we got further away from the islands.
Altair needed to use the wind here to get as far out in front of the fleet as she could. Once 5 miles from Mindelo harbor the wind had lightened and Altair hoisted the spinnaker. With the spinnaker up and sailing 10.5 to 11 knots we were catching the leaders quickly but sailing slightly higher angles than our course to steer (intended heading towards St. Lucia). Altair crew executed 3 good gibes and were feeling really good about our start to this leg of the race.
After 3 hours of sailing, the wind had decreased to a level that wouldn't move our 114 ton sailing yacht. We doused the spinnaker, started the main engine and motor-sailed on course toward St Lucia now 2,125 nautical miles to the West Southwest. The rest of the night of cruising was uneventful. The crew on watch continued to monitor the fleet as Altair increased her distance ahead of the fleet until finally no more sailboats were within range of detection.
Next stop at the Mercado "blue" was not successful. I could not find there "stinky cheese" , frozen pizza, or a spray bottle cleaner called "Vanish". Next i stopped into a gift shop full of African carved masks, paintings and tapestries to spend my last Escudos on some Cape Verde crafts. Now i only had to do the hot walk back to the boat in midday sun without any breeze. We had been alerted that this was an unusual period of no-wind in a place that regularly blows 25 to 30 knots in the windy/dry months November thru July.
around the Cape Verde islands and so the wind was stronger here than it would be when we got further away from the islands.
Altair needed to use the wind here to get as far out in front of the fleet as she could. Once 5 miles from Mindelo harbor the wind had lightened and Altair hoisted the spinnaker. With the spinnaker up and sailing 10.5 to 11 knots we were catching the leaders quickly but sailing slightly higher angles than our course to steer (intended heading towards St. Lucia). Altair crew executed 3 good gibes and were feeling really good about our start to this leg of the race.
After 3 hours of sailing, the wind had decreased to a level that wouldn't move our 114 ton sailing yacht. We doused the spinnaker, started the main engine and motor-sailed on course toward St Lucia now 2,125 nautical miles to the West Southwest. The rest of the night of cruising was uneventful. The crew on watch continued to monitor the fleet as Altair increased her distance ahead of the fleet until finally no more sailboats were within range of detection.
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