Love is in the air - or is it something in the water?

by Jeremy Wyatt on 16 Dec 2004 Love is in the air here in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia, with the exciting 3am arrival of the smallest boat in the ARC this year, the Norwegian Comfort 30, Glad.

Her double-handed crew, Karl-Ludvig Mauland and Hedda Maria Harringtonson, have had what they described as a ‘perfect trip,’ even though they suffered irreparable damage to their boom only three days out of Las Palmas.

After effecting a temporary repair the first time the boom snapped in the middle, they then lost it again during a squall and realised they would only be able to use the mainsail during very light winds. Their Comfort 30 has a masthead rig so she sailed quite comfortably with just the headsail most of the time.

Karl told us, ‘we learnt a lot from the experience and it gave us a huge amount of confidence as to how just the two of us dealt with the emergency. We weren’t in the event to compete, just to get across safely. We loved it out there so much we got engaged!’

Karl, 31, from Oslo met 26 year-old Maria three years ago whilst sailing with friends in Sweden. ’We’d been having a long distance relationship whilst Maria finished her studies as a nurse in Stockholm. At Christmas we decided I would take a sabbatical from my job as an auditor and we would do the Atlantic circuit together.'

Karl continues, ‘I knew that if we could cope with life together on a tiny 30ft yacht, we would definitely make a success of life together ashore. So I bought a ring, and planned to ask Maria when we were half way across. That way if she said ‘no’, I could work on her for the next 1,400 miles to change her mind!

'I got up for my watch at dawn, put on a clean shirt and came on deck with the ring - luckily she said ‘yes’!’

Other yachts in the ARC have found they have learnt new things about their boats on the crossing, in particular how equipment fails when under so much constant stress day after day.

Skipper of Ciao, Jason Pickering, who arrived on Monday evening, was surprised that the spinnaker pole became unattached several times during the trip, usually during the night in a squall!

Ciao has several scratches on her deck from the repeated incident and indeed at one point the complete spinnaker pole track on the mast peeled away from the constant sideways pressure.

Another boat with a spinnaker pole experience was Cat Taloo. Skipper Robert Douglas told us how being hit on the eye by the pole during an accidental gybe was a wake up call for all of them. Although the accident happened on a calm day and in daylight, he was up on the foredeck with no harness or lifejacket.

After the incident, which only left him with a rather fetching black eye, the rule of wearing lifejackets/harnesses whatever time of day or night when you go up on deck was instigated. ‘It’s common sense really,’ said Robert.

171 boats have now crossed the line here in Rodney Bay and the majority of the remaining boats are expected to arrive by this Friday. Last night participants enjoyed the Marina Manager’s Cocktail Party at Cuthbert Didier’s house on the other side of the lagoon.

For more information on ARC 2004, visit the event website at http://arc.worldcruising.com