Position 1200 UTC 25th November  27:08.00N 17:13.00W

The morning of the revised start was bright and sunny with a lively northerly wind.  The atmosphere in the marina was electric as as the yachts left their moorings to head for the start there was a band playing and a crowd cheering and waving flags.  The start was somewhat congested and in the event it took us 11 minutes to get there but we were off and all very excited.  The main was reefed according to the strong winds and after a while broad reaching we poled out the jib and made great progress in winds which often exceeded 30 knots.

Mid afternoon just as we were pulling away south of the island we had a significant problem when we lost our steering.  In the ensuing ‘chaos’ we were hit by a big wave which soaked some of the crew and we also caught a fish.  The latter has not been verified as we were too busy to deal with it but the line went out and eventually snapped.  We were forced to motorsail back to the island and anchor in the lee to investigate and found that whilst the cables for which we had replacements were intact, the main chain drive had snapped.  Some excellent repairs by Richie and Anthony who managed to shorten is and still re connect it and after eating at anchor a splendid meal by Jennie we were off again.  Sadly we were now in the wind shadow so motored for a few hours till 2am before we again found good wind which lasted up till lunchtime.

All is well, the sun is out and the skipper and crew are happy.  What else could we need