At long, long last we have found the fabled Atlantic NE Trade winds. On 2000 miles late! Nine o’clock last night, exactly 57 minutes after my bet! We picked up the NE Trades and they have been blowing a steady 13-18 kts ever since with a few gusts in excess of 20. All very Caribbean and friendly. However, we have been nursing ‘Big Red’ along as he now looks more like a road accident than a spinnaker. Charlie “Demo Dave” has taken to giving each new repair a version number.


 

Demo Dave and Buzz Lightyear, sign their handy work.

I have grave doubts that “Big Red” will survive the Atlantic. The latest tear came as we were closing on Challenger 1, a 72ft ex-BT Global Challenge Boat, We had been closing on them all afternoon and we were just about to overhaul them when we spotted another tear. So down it came again, and back into the saloon for repairs. We won’t try again until the morning now, but this is a major set back. Without a spinnaker we are going to struggle.


We had Challenger 1 in our sights but “Big Red” gave out again.

Well not all the news is bad. Buzz caught a lovely little Yellow Fin Tuna. Here’s him proudly showing it off with Charlie.



Not to be outdone Charlie “Demo Dave”, decided to catch his own fish.....................

 Here’s him proudly showing it off!! Charlie would like to think this is a Blue Marlin, but I suspect it’s a Sailfish. Can any of you fisherman identify it for us.

Fishing has now been banned, as we are full on racing and not stopping for anything, So I guess Charlie’s fish, that weighed it at about 70 lbs get the prize for the biggest catch.

We’re kind of busy now so you might not get too many blogs over the next couple of days, but forget us.

Well only 457 miles to go, we can almost taste it.


Steve and the crew

UHURU

7th December 2008


Steve Powell (Owner/Skipper)
UHURU of Lymington
steve {CHANGE TO AT} uhuru {DOT} mailasail {DOT} com
Mob: +44 7774 423 449
Boat Sat Phone: +870773150353

To track UHURU
go to http://www.marinetrack.com/

Log in using

User name: UHURUFriends
Password: 123456  (The world’s favourite password)

Then double click on the boat icon and it will take you to another map which shows you where we are. Usual zoom tools etc,. If you hold the cursor over the icon you will see boat speed and direction. If you want to see where we have been over the last few days go to the 'Tracker' tab and adjust the date range to how ever far back you want then refresh.

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