Hi all. It’s coming up to 14:00hrs on board Monday the 26^th. Got off to a great start over the line yesterday which was in big seas and very exciting. We went east initially away from the bulk of the fleet to run down the island then as darkness fell chose to abandon our initial route which would have brought us almost 60 miles south before talking our westerly turn. Instead we turned early with strong NE winds pushing us west. Unfortunately the predicted then happened and we were becalmed for about two hours under the lee of the island despite being almost 30 miles off. The wind then came back with a vengeance and we had a ‘wild’ night. Some minor damage was taken in the pounding - a slight tear to the Genoa, serrated boom preventer and torn mail sheet bag.

Crew are all well but tired. The last 24 hrs have been particularly tough with big seas but you are probably reading about that in other blogs. We are operating a three hour shift at night and four hour during the day with two on deck at anytime.

Will be updating this blog around lunchtime each day until our arrival in St. Lucia.