Position N24:00.0 W23:52.3

Dear Readers

I must apologise for our silence yesterday but the big winds we have been experiencing so far have been quite attritional on the boat and we have had some issues to deal with. Today has not been much better and as an example after my post lunch snooze I have just been greeted by a large nut which was in a crew member’s hand rather than in the place it should be and cannot be reinserted.

We have ongoing electrical issues which we are trying to resolve with broker Bob on shore. We have a fouled spinnaker halyard but oddly I have had few volunteers for going up the rig to sort it out. Probably just as well we have a spare halyard and are unlikely to want to fly a spi in these conditions anyway. We have stripped a reef line due to a poor feed. This is annoying as it is brand new and cost an arm and a leg as it is dyneema Still it is holding for now and we can fix when the wind moderates. However the most serious of all is the cafetaire which took off across the cabin this morning just before I was about to pour. Needless to say hot coffee and grounds all over the place and a verbal scolding for the helmsman at the time for not avoiding the offending wave. Fortunately no one was in the way of the airborne coffee. Coffee will now be brewed in a saucepan and sieved. I cannot be without my Sumatran. Anyway we are bowling along very quickly on a direct route to St Lucia. We have done two 200 mile days in the first three, something we ever achieved last time.

The crew are standing up to the fast pace admirably. Charlie the chef has been serving up quality food and telling the rest of us how to do it. I guess he wants to avoid a stomach upset. Alasdair the strategist and tactician has been telling us where to go in the nicest possible way and has been resolving most of the problems as they appear. Malcolm the owner-controller has been telling me where to go in the nicest possible way. Jonathan the apprentice has been learning fast. From scratch with about 10 minutes tuition from me and 20 minutes of a watchful eye is helming with the greatest of ease in a 4m following sea and 30 knots of wind. Amazing. He even suggested we shake out a reef on his watch yesterday. Today we sent him up to the pointy end to tie on a jib sheet with a bowline, a trick he had been told only briefly before departure.

We are in good spirits and hoping that the boat holds together. Looks like we are in for big winds for the next 2 or 3 days. Goodbye for now.

The Owner