It has been a very boisterous day’s sailing today. With big rollers roaring under the boat from the aft starboard quarter. The boat just gets picked up by them and then careens  down the wave it creates at unnatural angles…

Winds have been over 20knots+ all day (and night) along with gusts well in excess of 30 knots in the Thunderstorms. I guess its business as usual in the Atlantic!

We tried out a variation on our Goose Wing Rig today. In a moment of pure marketing genius I decided to call it Goosewing Plus.

As normal we have the (reefed) Genoa poled out to windward. Also the (reefed) Main Sail out to leeward, and the boom held in place with a stout preventer, connected to the end of the boom. The plus bit is the Staysail. We have this out all the way (no reef here), to leeward. Now this had two interesting effects. Firstly it improved the rolling motion dramatically. Like reduced it to a point of comfort.  Even safe to go to the loo like a boy, if you know what I mean.  Next, it spectacularly improved the boat speed.  It has to be said that this was set up with the wind at 125 to 150 degrees apparent to the stern. But it works for me! Looks impressive too………….

Mind you just as I was feeling very smug as this was going on, another yacht appeared over the horizon, with every bit of sail cloth up and just creamed past us. Cast of thousands on board, and obviously racing. Well that is my excuse.

We have both learned a lot on this trip. One particular development I am not ecstatic about is that crew has discovered e-mailing. What was my sole territory, “THE NAV STATION”, has now to be shared. It's a bit like a gentleman’s club having to let in ladies for the first time. All a bit shocking……….

Yesterday was our best single days run so far. 164nm in 24 hours. Given we reef down (big time) each evening and do not shake these out until after dawn/when crew gets out of bed, it is most impressive. Well I think so. As I write this, we have 148nm to go to the waypoint off English Harbour.  (With 2,872NM so far on this leg). That probably means that if we carry on at the current rate of knots we will arrive off Jolly harbour at around 0400 on Monday morning. So, we will have to slow the boat down a bit so we can see Shirley Heights at first light, and appreciate our first land fall for 22 days………………..