Friday 20^th November 2009

Position 22:12.00N 27:31.79W

We skipped along at 5 knots all night with very light Easterly winds. The wind is directly behind us now on our course line and so the crew are going on deck to put up the twistle rig again.

The twistle rig involves poling out the two large headsails, one on each side of the boat, with the other end of the poles fitted into a universal joint.

The crew have formed a new ‘ twistle rig’ association and their motto is ‘twistle me rigs’, as opposed to the other nautical term ‘Shiver me timbers’.

The Co founders are Malc and Adam, I am to be initiated after extensive training, Mark is honorary chairman and Old Sea Dog (Paul Cleary) has been given the position of apprentice twistler due to lack of hours.

The Articles of Association are taking much discussion along with the details of the initiation ceremony.

The co founders have put the twistle up and down so many times they have decided that they must have at least an ‘ology’ in twistling if not a doctorate.

The latest forecast is for the trade winds to fill in around Tuesday ( I remember hearing the same forecast this time last week!) then hopefully we will be able to speed up significantly and make up some time so that we arrive to meet Kirsty, Amalia and Riley & Sandie in Antigua.

We were a bit disheartened by our progress until roll call this morning when we plotted the other boats’ positions. We are catching up the smaller boats that left two days before us and we are making very similar progress to ‘Roundabout’ and ‘Miss Tippy’, the other big boats.

The sun is shining, fishing lines are out and it is a beautiful day, the twistle is now up and we are on course for Antigua – yeah !