By: Hiten Patel

Wow, week 2 kicked off with a bang! The ARC+ departed on Sunday, so there was a ton of activity on the T Pontoon with the larger catamarans and monohulls welcoming last minute crew arrivals, stowing gear, filling tanks, completing repairs, and finalizing inspections. In the midst of all of the hullabaloo, the children that are participating in the ARC+, over 50 according to the ARC office, were zooming around on their scooters and enjoying some fishing off the breakwater.

We considered hopping into our formidable tender and going out to see the start of the rally, but opted to stay aboard and enjoy it from the comfort of our bow. Pontoon T is right at the entrance to the marina, so we were able to see all of the boats go out, waving to the onlookers seated in bleachers on the breakwater. It was a lot of fun to see all of the crew and well wishers as they inched towards the start, and even though we weren’t participating, the energy and anticipation was palpable, urged on by the DJ music and occasional horns and vuvuzelas. In another week or so that will be us leaving the confines of the marina for the open water!

After the start of the ARC+ Rally, we moved Welcome from T Pontoon to DQ Pontoon, aka “The Wall”. So, with Jay at the helm and Melissa and I on the lines, we slipped the T Pontoon and motored over the few hundred meters over to our new home. I know it’s an incredibly short distance, but first impressions are often lasting ones.

Melissa and I were amazed at how quiet the engine is. You have almost no idea she’s under engine until you see the displays at the helm. We know Jay spent hours researching and deciding on what lines and fenders to buy for the boat, and the effort has paid off! Not only do they look beautiful, they are fit for the task. When we arrived at our new berth, we “Med moored” — reversed in with bow lines affixed to the seabed — and despite a pretty strong 15+ knot crosswind that was pushing us into the boat near us, stuck the landing. The onlookers enjoyed the show!

The remainder of the week was all about prep. There were at least a dozen tasks that we kicked off, many of which are now happily complete: ARC check-in and safety check, engine and generator service, warranty services, rig review/seminar, rope splicing seminar, menu planning and provisioning, and more.

A quick sidebar here. Oyster Yachts are renowned for the quality of their yachts and for their service, and I’m sure this was one of the major considerations for the Turleys when they decided to build Welcome. If our first week of interaction with their service team in Las Palmas is any indication, this reputation is well earned and deserved! Their team has been diligent in tracking down issues large and small, from trouble shooting issues with the shore power and forward head to picking up an errant piece of heat shrink that fell to the bottom of the bilge. The team is conscientious, helpful, professional, expert, and best of all, friendly and kind. It’s been a real pleasure interacting with and learning from them!

One of the highlights this week was the Seldén Masts breakfast seminar that was hosted on Welcome. All Oyster owners and crew were invited aboard to learn from the professionals on how to best prepare before departure, and then how to tune and monitor the rigging system while on passage. It was a very useful session and helped to highlight areas that might have otherwise been overlooked. The standing rig is the infrastructure that holds the sails (has tons of load on it), so its importance in safe passage cannot be overstated.

This dovetailed well with the rigging inspection that was done the week before, which identified a need for adjustment to the pre-bend, the need for a few additional washers, and some fine tuning to the mounting of the Cyclops load sensors. All was fixed in a matter of days. The stellar team from Rigging Point, Oyster and Seldén once again shone through!

On Tuesday, we did our official check-in to the ARC. Pretty much a non-event, but noteworthy because it was one step closer to our launch. The World Cruising Club manages over 200 boats and over 1,000 crew between the ARC and ARC+. They’ve worked out a pretty good process over the 40 years they’ve been hosting this event, and we were in and out in about 60 minutes. They host a dozen or so social events, and a similar number of technical seminars such as short handed sailing, provisioning, and rope splicing (which Jay found very helpful).

We also worked on some safety projects — specifically installing all of the bungs near the throughulls and inspecting and connecting all of the PFDs and Personal Locator Beacons. It was a bit of a tedious task because technology doesn’t always behave in the way you expect it to, but it was satisfying to complete and certainly gave me an incremental amount of warm fuzzies.

The day after we checked in, we had our official ARC safety inspection which we passed with flying colors. The lead safety inspector, Roger Seymour, was one of our instructors at the Hamble School of Yachting, so he had given us some good things to make sure we have inspected before departure — life raft, MOB kit, fire extinguishers, etc.

A special thanks to the team from Humerus for giving us a tour of the boat and a great discussion on their system of inspections and watches. Lots of pro tips were shared which we are beginning to incorporate into our own procedures. Our list of pre-departure tasks includes some of the top priority items already.

For Melissa and I, the back end of the week has been focused on provisioning. We developed a full meal plan, including snacks and drinks. And we started bringing food aboard in waves, starting with dry goods. We are learning how to best utilize the storage space available. And we’re ensuring that everything is put in some kind of plastic storage bags with minimal packaging and absolutely no cardboard (bugs often start here). Finally, we have a written inventory of where things are located so we can easily find what we’ve stowed away.

As Cat wrote in her post a few weeks back, it’s an often overlooked piece of the puzzle, but it is important to keep everyone nourished, but also plays an important role in maintaining morale. Given that we have a couple of special occasions while underway, we have planned for the traditional vegetarian Patel Family Thanksgiving Lasagna and Macaroni and Cheese for Jay’s birthday. 🙂