Noon Position:  09:52S 033:19W

Noon to Noon Run:  142 miles

Date:  13 December 2009

After a good night’s sailing with the cruising chute up, and passing or closing right up to the last remnants of competition in the non-race, the winds went light early in the morning. Frustrating, but this is part of sailing and you just have to get on with it. Or so I thought.

I was disappointed to find that many of the boats, including our main “competitors” reacted by simply turning their engines on. In the last 11 days we have used our engine for only 28 hours to get through the Doldrums. After the Doldrums, we set about doing as well as we could under sail again, and day by day we chipped away at the fleet. But by turning their engines on and motoring away from our inescapable advance on them, they have taken our ball away and we on Mina2, still sailing, feel somewhat cheated.

Back tomorrow with a new update perhaps on what might now be the third “non-race” of the crossing – but with Mina2 at the back of the grid once more!