Almost exactly 3 days since the START gun went off PD on San Miguel! Currently we have full main, spinnaker and are running on a direct course for Falmouth some 740nm ahead and we have sailerd about 440nm. It is a glorious day – sunny, 17 – 18kts breeze from SSW and a gentle rolling Atlantic swell. Yes we are yawing about a bit, and obviously have preventer rigged and everything well stowed – just making toast this morning was quite a work out! Robert is having a good sleep and this afternoon I hope to grab some zzzzzzzzzzz! I did fall sound asleep this morning while “on watch” (after all, some of the single handed sailors on this event reckon they get more sleep with only 1 person – so why not have a nap while on watch?!) In reality there is nothing about – after being quite busy yesterday with Pinta, Fidelitas and the cruising boat all around, we have not seen anything on AIS since yesterday late afternoon. I also have the “sea Me” radar transponder switched on, and that will ping if it gets touched by any ship’s radar.

We have seen lots of dolphins but they seem to be on a mission (fishing?!) as they have not really stopped to play. No whales yet!

Looking at the chart we are on the same latitude as north Spain now – La Coruna is about 440nm abeam of us on a course of due east. The winds look set to stay in the SSW for the next 24 hours before gradually veering SW and perhaps even west. It seems like they will be a steady 15 – 20 knots so with any luck we can hang on to the spinnaker. We have achieved 149.5nm noon to noon (152.7 previous day) which is meeting our objective of 150nm daily runs. A little more would of course be nice, but comes at a price of pushing Andrillot II and ourselves quite hard, and it is so important that we keep ourselves rested and fit and of course look after the boat. I will definitely have to buy new Spinnaker guys – the current ones are looking chaffed but remember this boat has now well over 12,000nm under her keel.

It seems early and presumptuous to be thinking of ETA at Falmouth already, but it may be Tuesday afternoon. I have only managed to download GRIBS as far as Sunday so tomorrow’s download will bring us Monday’s winds as well. Let’s hope they stay westerly or even NW and we can have a nice white sail reach for a bit! White sail reaching is a lot more relaxing than the big red white and blue kite!  

I hope all is well with you all!

Tim and Robert