Sail for Charity

After 2 months at sea, with a short break for work, Team Sail for Charity's regular navigator Greg Conary arrived in Cowes on his Beneteau 42s7 Eclipse after completing the European ARC transatlantic race (West to East). Greg left Galveston (Houston), Texas on 26th April 2008 and eventually crossed the Royal Yacht Squadron line off Cowes at 11:38 UTC on Wednesday, 25th June.

Their journey was completed in four main legs, stopping in Florida Keys/Fort Lauderdale, Bermuda, the Azores and finally arriving in Cowes. Eclipse was tracked by satellite all the way, and there's a great plot of the journey at www.kemahportal.com/eclipse/eclipse.asp.

You can also find more stories from the journey at www.kemahportal.com/eclipse/index.asp, and photo's taken by the crew along the way at www.flickr.com/photos/eclipse-usa50794.

Writing the final blog from the trip, Greg wrote "I keep getting asked why I did this or if I regret not selling Eclipse and buying a boat in the UK - but no regrets what-so-ever. We had a fantastic crew for all of the legs and great support teams on shore. JFK once famously said 'we choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard'. I'm sure every member of the crew feels a real sense of accomplishment for taking part in the crossing - I know I sure do!"

All we can say is well done Greg - and we'll never question your navigational skills again!!!

Having spent the Thursday recovering from the arrival party, Greg was joined by Andy, Karen and Laura "squirt" Crosland, and together with remaining ARC crew member Fran, the Friday was spent getting ready for Saturday's Round the Island Race.

Saturday saw a windy day for the Round the Island, as Greg was joined by ARC Europe and Sail for Charity Crew members to complete the race in 8 hours 25 minutes, coming 20th out of 43 finishers in ISC Division 4B; 59th out of 134 finishers in Group 4 and 360th overall out of 733 ISC finishers - despite having a rating which Greg did mention once or twice was higher than expected ... or considering the number of blenders we had aboard!! (For full results, click here)

Since Eclipse will be in UK waters for a while, Greg plans to enter a few more races this season. For more details, please see the Eclipse Diary 2008 page of this website.