We hope you are all well?

We are off! We lifted our anchor at 1800 local time and headed out through the Town Cut toward Horta. Most of our ARC Rally fleet left on Wednesday at 1200 and so we have a but of catching up to do. Our delayed start was a decision we made to complete a few jobs on Lilli Mae before we departed and by the wind forecast. And so we have some catching up to do!

At this moment we are in very light winds heading ESE toward our Saturday (25th) target position where we are hoping to intercept a low pressure system coming from WSW.

We don’t think we can keep up with it and so our idea is to arrive ahead of it and then to chase it as it passes over. Let’s see if it works! At the moment we are in the big blue area of the wind map which has no wind and so we have the mainsail, headsail and the “iron sail” (engine) deployed.

The crew are working well together and having fun. Rick is constantly checking wind and routing. Thanks Rick. Alan has taken on the role of cook which the rest of us are all enjoying! Thanks Alan.

Not much else going on. It was really hot in St Georges yesterday. Now we are at sea, the temperature is pleasant. Beautiful sunset last night, full moon and great sunrise this morning.

We should not complain!

We will keep you updated on progress.

All the best for now.

From the crew aboard Lilli Mae