Sailing with the Treleavens

The finish line was a welcome sight at 2237 hrs local time on the 11th December. Finishing in 24th place over the line we spent 15 days 13hrs 37 mins at sea covering 2712 nms. Now lined up with all the big ones we are very happy with our result. After a day listening to the rig making strange noises as we rolled over each wake, it was a long 230 nms motor sailing to the finish. A further rig inspection during the day discovered that both the top spreaders had also torn away from the pins at the front of the mast end. More lines were attached to steady the mast and with careful handling we managed to sail through the finish line, a rule of the race.

What a welcome we received, cups of rum punch, bottles of Bounty rum, beer and baskets of fruit. All demolished with ease as other yachts came up to congratulate us on our performance. The specialty mix was ‘mutton bird’, rum with bitter lemon. Even Kevin stopped drinking his Bundaberg rum to enjoy the local mix, talk about taking coals to Newcastle, bringing Aussie rum to the home of rum.

Now a few more days of celebration as the rest of the fleet arrive at Rodney B ay, St Lucia.

Not only were we 24th to finish we were also the first of the 5 Australian yachts and the first Beneteau. The topic of conversation in the port is how long did you motor for.? We were forced to motor due to rig problems but have found a large number in front and behind us motored for over 70 hours. It was a slow race with the last days being windless and yachts do put importance on arriving in Rodney Bay as early as possible to enjoy the rum.

Our crew were all fantastic each offering something special to our crossing. Kevin forward of the mast for the first time in his life, David with his sail repair skills and mind games, Andrew as the youngest aboard going up and down the mast, Nick as ‘Capt Araldite’ (we couldn’t get him off the wheel) and Michelle dishing up meals. We all had a lot of laughs but also worked very hard to get us into the position in which we finished.

We now look forward to slowing down and enjoying our Caribbean experience for the next 5 months. What we have seen so far has made us feel very relaxed about the culture and beauty of the islands.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 4:08 pm and is filed under 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.