Friday 19th January 18
Racing Christine back to Antigua
The race is on, Christine is also going back to Jolly Harbour and we are all set to make it a race. The fact that Christine is a Southerly 42, only 3 years old, does not deter us…we’ll give it our best shot. We manage to synchronise our departure from the anchorage to the minute, without even talking to each other. Of course under engine Christine is much faster but we soon catch up when we hoist our sails. Not for long, I think Peter is taking this racing lark seriously, his genniker (huge downwind sail) goes up next and then effortlessly he passed us. We had to work hard to keep up, it did become easier when the genniker came down, we were able to gain on him then. Ian was in charge of tweaking the sails and the tracking of him on the AIS (we were able to monitor how many metres away we were from Christine), leaving me to deal with the helm. We managed a steady 7- 7.5 knots all the way. Beautiful sail, perfect winds and wall to wall sunshine. By the time we were in sight of Antigua, we were able to read the name on its stern. And then much to our surprise, we passed him, leaving him standing in our dirty air! Obviously this did not go unnoticed, and the genniker was back out again…to no avail….we passed the five islands before him! I think he may have let us win, but this was probably one of the best sail we have had, perfect conditions and the chasing made it really exciting.
We got back to Jolly Harbour as Time after Time were going out, but they changed their mind and stayed so we could formulate a plan for Montserrat.
Sealife arrives shortly after us, nice to have friends in the harbour!
We spend the evening at Sam and Steve’s house. They are making plans for the future and it may not involve Wanderlust anymore… It will be sad if they give up, we have enjoyed meeting up with them over the last months.