Stormy Weather Greets ARC 2015 Crew During Solent Training

3,085 views  |   November 12th, 2015 

All summer the crew for the 2015 ARC Rally has been building and it won’t be long before they will be leaving the Canaries and crossing the Atlantic for St Lucia.

During the race Challenger 3 will be sending us some updates as they cross the ocean and, as a taster of what’s to come, here is a blog from their first official sail as a crew.

Training hard for the ARC

Last weekend saw the start of our ARC crew’s transatlantic adventure. In Portsmouth. In a gale of wind and plenty of rain.

The crew assembled for the first time at 10:00 on Saturday and whilst introductions were made and the skipper Ricky went over what was to be covered that weekend, the wind howled on deck.

Captain Ricky Chalmers instructing the crew

Key to the weekend was trying to fit in some spinnaker practice. In this much wind??

After safety and deck briefings, the Challenger yacht cast off into the Solent. They beat west in the hope of getting far enough past Cowes to do some downwind sailing back to Cowes and practice poling out the headsails but the day ran out and no sooner had they passed Cowes it was time to head in.


Spinnaker Hoist

Sunday saw a 0530 start as a brief period of relatively lighter winds early on that day provided an opportunity to get the Spinnaker up in Southampton Water which they managed. Success! And when the wind picked up they played with poling out the headsails.


The boat returned to Gunwharf Quays mid-afternoon on Sunday before the weather picked up again. The Crew departed windswept and rosy-cheeked excited at the prospect of warmer, dryer trade wind sailing in just a couple of weeks time!


The actual boat they will do the ARC on, Challenger 3, has already arrived in Las Palmas. The Race starts on 22nd November and you will be able to track their progress via this link: ARC Rally Tracker

Posted by: First Class Sailing

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