We are making good progress, despite damaging some sails. On the morning of the 23^rd, we split the mainsail between the 1^st and 2^nd reef. About a 4m tear along the vertical seam. The sail is old and very worm out so did not come as a surprise, just annoyance. So we reefed down to 2 reefs and carried on. 24 hourslater the same thing happened above 2^nd reef, so the sail is now out of action. We dropped, and then hoisted the Trisail.

Later that day I noticed a tear in the Yankee, so we dropped and patched it up. We had it re-hoisted within an hour.

Then this morning the staysail blew out. We had just dropped to patch a hole and when we hoisted it blew out in another place. Luckily this is the sail we have a spare of on board, so we hoisted that one. It is a new sail so looks great and will work well for us. So a fairly annoying and bust few days, but moral is high, and these sails were dead on the last crossing, so now finally ready for the bin. They are the originals from build so have done their time. However it must be said that they don’t make them to last……

We are currently changing plans for destinations, as the weather to get ot the Azores is not ideal, so I am plotting as course for Madeira, but also keeping in mind of missing that and going directly to Gibraltar, as we have not used much fuel after motoring for less than a day, so this would be the only thing to stop for. If the weather line up well then we will keep on going, but ready to stop and take shelter as necessary.

It is slightly easier out here as we can move into a position on the course to line us up for the next weather, when we get into the med, this option gets reduced and the weather can play a sometimes bigger game.

Anyway I digress. Flying along even with reduced sail area. Wind speed is 20 knots from NNW and we are sailing at 11/12 knots in an Easterly direction.

Mat and crew

JH2

Position

"34:10.03N 040:23.53W"