It's looking good for a departure to the Canaries on Thursday. I’m waiting for an auto helm to arrive later today, (many thanks Steve and Lyn). Tomorrow, I can do some final preparations before setting off early Thursday.

I expect 10 days sailing and with a high pressure system settling in to the west I can see some northerly winds kicking in down the west coast of Portugal Friday/Saturday which will be fantastic. 

I've had a word with the crew (thats, the boat, the Aries wind vane, the Bukh engine and the AIS/Coms systems) and to be honest they have all become a bit lazy and I’m a bit concerned with their attitude. Also, there has been a bit of a fall out between the Aries wind vane and the AIS/Coms system and I am sure it all revolves around the auto helm as the Aries thinks we don’t need it and that she can quite easily helm the boat without the need for the auto helm.

Bukh has not helped the situation as he sits there egging Aries on saying how things used to be done in the old days before we had auto helms and the such.

So I’ve had a meeting with all the crew and asked that they stop their squabbling and focus on getting to the Canaries.  I've also asked that they come up with some metrics so I can manage progress. Well, you can guess how that's gone down. The boat had to step in and call me aside to explain that's not how we work here. She said we all muck in and it's a team effort and by having metrics it would be counter productive and cause unnecessary friction within the team. But she has asked that I come up with a common goal. So we sat down and had a brain storming session and decided that getting to the Canaries would be our common goal. We also agreed that to improve our communications we will have daily stand-ups. This has itself become an issue as Aries and Bukh want to have their own stand-up……and will only come to the team stand-up if the sea and wind come as well. I said that I have little influence over the sea and the wind, at which point they all collectively sighed and said I was just the same as all the other skippers, which made me feel totally inadequate...…….   

Pic below is a tin of Campanal, which I had the other day and its like a breakfast fry-up in a tin. It's got beans and bacon and black pudding and sausage all in one meal. So I’ve bought 10 of them, one for each days sailing……

All the best for now

Ben