Worried about Ray

What a night! Taking over from Finn at 4am, I was warned of several squalls that were passing over our stern, but with only 300nm to go I was in high spirits. The first squall came and went without any problems. Then suddenly the autohelm, Ray, malfunctioned (yes, this is the second time this has happened on my watch). If you're not expecting this it's quite a scary experience, as the boat suddenly veers up towards the wind and without much light to get your bearings it's hard to know what exactly's going on. Add in a manic beeping from the autohelm unit and suddenly you're in full panic mode! Luckily Nic and Finn were quickly up onto deck and seemed to sort the issue out with a quick reset.

Unfortunately, just as I was settling down I was hit by a flying fish! I was sat behind the helm and suddenly something clanged off one of the spokes and hit me on the arm. My first impression was that the whole wheel was falling apart but then I saw the fish flapping about beside me. Nic had a good laugh as I tried to get hold of it and throw it back overboard.

About half an hour later the autohelm malfunctioned again just as a squall was approaching. This time the reset didn't do the trick and Finn had to hand steer whilst Nic and I dismantled half the cockpit looking for where the fault had originated. Over two and half hours later the problem had been isolated to a faulty cable and we had transferred the autohelm monitor away from the helm and to the companionway dashboard. This was far from ideal, however, as in its new position the monitor took on a tendency to reset itself of its own accord, effectively turning off autopilot and reverting to manual steering without giving any prior notice. On one occasion this resulted in a crash gybe and an almighty bang as the boom swung across the stern. Thankfully no one was standing up at the time. Later in the day Nic managed to sort out what was wrong and we've been able to put the autohelm monitor back where it belongs.

This evening saw the annual Magrathea Quiz Night. Five questions were prepared by each member of crew and announced by our skipper. The standard of questions were pretty advanced (ranging from "Who initiated the formation of the NHS?" and "When were women given the vote in Switzerland?" to "What is the name of Danger Mouse's sidekick?") and 10 out of 25 turned out to be a pretty decent score. Nic came through in first with 17, though the validity of this result is under suspicion seeing as he was also the quiz-master.

As I write this we have 173nm to go. Today has seen us surfing along at an average of 8 knots under the 20 knots of breeze, and if this continues we should therefore be arriving in St Lucia sometime tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow's blog might be delayed by a day or two owing to an inevitable rum-punch hangover...

Having a 'whale' of a time (copyright Vik Wells)

Just when we thought nothing could beat yesterday's excitement several minke whales appeared around the boat early this morning. They ranged in size from 15-25 foot and could be seen by their white bellies as they floated to the tops of large waves before surfing down their fronts. It was a fantastic sight, especially when they came surging towards the stern and passed beneath us. We were a little worried as to what exactly it was they were doing beneath the boat (trying to mate with the keel a common concern) but we didn't get any bumps. One of the larger ones drifted along beside us within a metre of the beam for a couple of minutes and even stuck it's head up to give us a once over. It was pretty demoralising to see how little movement from the whales' tails could propel them to the same speed as Magrathea!

Thankfully we hadn't put the fishing lines out yet, so there was no need to worry about having to reel in a multi-tonne whale. Had we managed it though, any concerns about dwindling food supplies on the boat would have been immediately extinguished. Despite our best efforts the picture above is unfortunately the best we could get of any of them.

The wind has dwindled a bit this afternoon so we've had the motor back on. Our ETA of the 12th is hopefully still achievable.

Anyone for Sushi?

Wind has been steadily increasing since yesterday, as predicted by our weather forecast, and we hope to be able to ride on the same north-easterly breeze right through to St Lucia. Last night we set up a sweepstake for our estimated ETA - these ranged from the optimistic: Sarah with 1300 on the 12th, to the slightly pessimistic: me with 0200 on the 13th. With an average speed of just over 7 knots today we should be looking at somewhere between these figures.

Today was another scorcher and most people spent the day sunbathing or reading. Following our Dorado catch a couple of days ago, Nic had handed over responsibility of the fishing lines to me. With little happening for most of the day I'd retired to my cabin for a siesta. Just as I was drifting off I heard the unmistakable sound of a line whirring. I quickly scampered up onto deck to find that both our lines had caught! Me and Nic worked on a line each and soon had a couple of 8lbs yellow fin tuna on the stern - he maintains that his was the larger of the two! Keen to partake in the full experience, I then decapitated and gutted the fish under Nic's watchful eye, before taking them down to the galley for filleting. Sarah then took over and, within just over an hour of the catch, we were sitting down with a beer and enjoying the fruits of our labour with soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger. It was possibly the highlight of the crossing for me so far. The fresh tuna was incredible, all the more so because we'd caught and prepared it all ourselves.

Lines will be out again first thing tomorrow morning to see what else we can catch.

To the point

Great sunrise. No wind. Motoring. Very hot. Sunburn. Great sunset.

Mid-Atlantic dip

Today was muggy. Very muggy. Overcast all day and with a gradually weakening breeze, everyone was getting a little bit sweaty. Attempts to have siestas below deck invariably resulted in clinging bedsheets as you got up and soon everyone was willing the storm clouds up ahead to hurry up and arrive with some cooling rain.

I decided it was about time I went for a swim. Not only would it provide an opportunity to cool down but Nic also suggested it might help attract a few larger fish/sharks to his fishing line! Safety first of course. We set up a safety line and i lowered myself slowly into the ocean and let myself be dragged along. Despite wearing two pairs of swimming shorts in an attempt to get some washing done, the force of the drag almost had them down round my ankles. The water was surprisingly warm but after about five minutes and a few mock calls of "shark!" I decided it was time to get out.

Just after lunch a squall hit and seemed to suck away all the wind around us. It left an eerie silence and a dramatic light blue sea beneath the grey clouds. Nic and Sarah also took the opportunity to drop off two "message-in-the-bottle" bottles left by two youngsters previously guests on the boat. With the wind easing off dramatically later in the afternoon there's a good chance they'll make it to the Caribbean before us!

Breaking wind

Having pottered along with about 15 knots of wind for most of yesterday it was quite a surprise to be suddenly hit with an unforecasted 35 knots at 11pm last night. I happened to be reading Nick Ward's "Left for Dead" - an account of the author's experience of the Fastnet race of 1979, in which he and another crewmember were left for dead on their yacht by their fellow crewmates during an unprecedented and unexpected storm of colossal scale - when Nic passed my room in full wet-weather gear and told me of the developing gale! Going up onto watch I was met with some very large waves and the first real sign that we are out in the middle of an ocean. Up until now if it wasn't for the sat nav screen showing our position it would be easy to forget that we were on a crossing. It was an exhilarating experience, and what we thought was a temporary squall lasted well into today. The strong winds allowed us to post our highest 24 hour mileage to date - 193nm.

Sarah managed to transform the Dorado Nic caught yesterday into what can only be described as one of the most delicious fish dishes any of us have tasted. This evening we cracked out the bubbly to celebrate passing half-way and had two Beer-O'Clocks since we've just pushed the clocks back another hour.

Half-way!

Not a bad day today. The wind has been fairly constant and we've been heading almost directly at St Lucia with a poled out genoa. Quite a large swell is unfortunately pushing across us, causing the batons in the main sail to pop in and out with a great shudder as well as making Sarah's life in the galley unpleasant. Despite the noise Vicks managed to sleep almost the whole day.

We passed the 1400nm to go mark this evening - roughly half way - and celebrated in style with some rum and cokes (not that we're always drinking on this trip). Nic also caught a two foot long Dorado earlier, so we're all looking forward to a fish lunch tomorrow.

Long way to go

After a day of motoring yesterday we were finally rewarded this morning with a decent bit of wind. We soon had the main and genoa up and were bustling along at 8 knots, though the sky was overcast and rainfall intermittent. Unfortunately we appeared to be travelling between wind holes and the wind came and went throughout the day.

With ten days having now passed since we left Gran Canaria, a little cabin fever has begun to set in. Me and Nic are doing our best to outdo each other with our facial hair - Nic now resembles Hulk Hogan (much appreciated by Sarah), whilst I've decided to go for the full moustache. Topics of conversation have also begun to dwindle and now almost every other discussion is over whether or not our supply of alcohol is going to last us to St Lucia (and to a lesser extent whether we have enough fuel). With sundowners being crucial to crew moral and weather forecasts suggesting we have several windless days to come, this really is a big issue. We've already worked through all the vodka and Amaretto and now the gin is starting to take a beating too! Doubts have also been raised over the amount of food we have left on board, especially as Nic's attempts to catch fish have only resulted in three baby Dorados so far. Thankfully we now watch two episodes of the TV series Heroes every night, and this is really helping to raise our spirits.

Plodding along

Not much to report today. The wind's been fairly weak and we've struggled along at about an average of 6.5 knots with bouts of the engine when things got really slow. Lots of sunshine this morning so we all took advantage of it to work on our suntans - not bad for the 1st of December! With not a lot else to do we've also been playing plenty of cards and the girls have been enjoying the colouring-in sets donated by Nic's mum, Liz.

Flying fish are becoming ever more common. With my shift finishing just after sunrise it falls to me to clear their rock-solid carcasses from the deck!

Back in Business

We set sail again today at 4pm local time from Sao Vincente (we're now one hour behind GMT due to our first clock change). All in all it was a good stopover. We had to wait a little longer than expected because of the repairs needed, but we made the most of it - on Saturday we spent the best part of the afternoon in a bar sampling the local beer and later went out for a delicious meal at a very small local restaurant. We followed this up with several more beers and a live band, and staggered back to the marina in the early hours. We also found time to make friends with a local kitten, who we named Dave, and for Vicky to give me a (surprisingly good) haircut. Nic bowed out of the beard-growing competition we'd begun on leaving Las Palmas by shaving off most of it to leave a Ricky Gervais style goatee! Verdict is still out on whether it's a good look.

From what we've seen, the Verde Islands are a strange fusion of African, Caribbean and Portuguese influences. They still deal in the old Portuguese currency and speak the language, but the architecture is distinctly Caribbean, with brightly coloured buildings along the waterfront. The islands are certainly dusty - after wandering the streets for an hour you can feel you skin layered with dirt - and perhaps not the most attractive, but it's a place we felt you could grow to like.

With our course now almost directly east we can really start to make inroads into the miles to St Lucia - currently standing at 2055nm! With any luck we'll start moving back up through some of our competitors, though any hopes of securing a decent finishing position amongst our class have unfortunately been discarded

When it rains it pours

Last night we pulled into Sao Vincente of the Cape Verde Islands. Surprisingly enough the Verde Islands aren't the top of the chartering destination wish-list and we therefore had no detailed charts of the area. Thankfully we could rely on the help of the James family and others to guide us safely into Porto Grande (unfortunately the light of day has revealed nothing grand about it at all). On anchoring we found that our sat nav placed us on land when in fact we were about 100m from shore!

The reason for this unplanned stop-over is due to several problems we experienced on Thursday afternoon. At around 5pm we decided it was about time to put in our first gybe in 24 hours before relaxing with a G&T and Sarah's eagerly awaited home-made dip. With all hands on deck we switched off the autohelm but to our dismay the steering would only turn one way and suddenly the mainsail was backing from the wrong direction! Nic took the helm and shouted for us all to get down, but luckily the preventer held firm. A sudden pop in the mainsail ripped a hole in the top two sections and soon we were rushing to empty the lazarette so that Nic could get to the the steering mechanism. With the wind up at fifteen knots and fairly large waves, me and Vicky soon regretted the number of cases of lager we had packed in there! We were sprawled across the deck trying to hold onto everything we'd just emptied as the boat rocked from side to side! Nic and Finn then got busy checking over all the cables, taking out the compass and generally doing a stirling effort at trying to get the steering sorted. Eventually they located the problem as being a failed linear drive hydrolic ram that was jamming when attempting to steer. Luckily the boat is fitted with two, so on removing the faulty one we regained control of manual steering. With night closing in we decided to leave the mainsail down and sail on through the night with just the genoa - still managing about six knots.

After speaking to the guys at Oyster on Friday morning we decided it would be best to divert to the Verdes - even though we had regained control of steering we were advised to get the second ram replaced. We've been told that this shouldn't take more than a day. It would also allow time to finish off repairing the hole in the mainsail. Thus with a little disappointment (we'd heard from many of you how well we were doing in the race) we diverted south. Since St Lucia is almost directly west from the Verdes, we concluded that we had effectively "turned the corner" and therefore broke out the bubbly on the way in to port along with Sarah's, now long-awaited, home-made dip (which was well worth the wait!).

Mobbed by dolphins

Due to a slight technical hitch the entry below should have appeared yesterday. In the meantime we've had some big issues with the autohelm and subsequently the mainsail, and we're now on our way to the Cape Verde islands for a quick stop off to make some repairs. All will be detailed in a blog post tomorrow, but rest assured everyone aboard is safe and well and ready for a bit of dry land later this evening.

Yesterday afternoon saw the sudden arrival of more than one hundred dolphins around the boat. It was almost as if we were under attack - they came at us from several directions and swam in at terrific speed with huge jumps (see picture above)! They played for almost an hour, whizzing back and forth, belly-flopping and surfing the waves from the stern. At times you couldn't see water at the bow they were so densely packed together and on going downstairs you could hear a symphony of clicking. A great day, with an average of eight/nine knots thanks to the kite, was rounded off with an amazing sunset.

With the wind remaining at around force four we decided it would be best for the stability of the boat to leave the kite up throughout the night. What a great decision that proved to be - the wind remained constant and we were chomping through the miles at up to 10.5 knots for several hours. More torpedo dolphins arrived again to put on a night-show.

The kite's still up this morning so the record of 36 hours of consecutive kite flying set by Magrathea on last year's Transatlantic is looking in real danger. We've also just heard on the radio that we're currently ahead of Stravaig - a newly built Oyster 72! Let's hope this good wind we've found holds.

Three torpedo dolphins, two shooting stars and a whole lot of phosphorescence

Around 10pm last night we appeared to hit the edge of the hole in the wind and the sails began to flap and boat speed slowed right down. Rather than endure the banging of the fully batoned-mainsail flipping in and out, as well as the wear and tear associated with it, the sails were brought down and we reverted to the engine. Several other boats in our vicinity did the same so it hopefully shouldn't affect our standing too much.

My watch from 4-7am was very eventful. For the first hour or so the sky was overcast and black and I therefore got my first experience of phosphorescence: as the boat ploughs along it churns up fine particles of algae in the water and the excitement this results in causes them to phosphoresce. The upshot is similar to sitting in a packed stadium at night and looking across to the other side of spectators as the main act walks onto stage - suddenly there are several hundred flashes of light as everyone starts snapping away with their cameras. Even more spectacular was when three dolphins suddenly appeared beside the boat. With no moon, and the stars hidden by cloud, they would normally be invisible but by churning up the water themselves as they swim they appear as "green torpedos", as dad put it in his blog last year. Just as I threw on my harness so I could take a look over the side, one of the dolphins took a huge leap out of the water about one metre from me. They stayed for about five minutes before whizzing off again. Absolutely amazing. To round off the evening the clouds cleared to leave a perfect starry night and, lying on my back in the cockpit, I caught sight of two shooting stars.

The wind strengthened a little this morning so we've been running with the kite back again, and are still heading south. Chef has just cooked up a delicious lemon drizzle cake and we've got lamb biriani for dinner tonight - lovely stuff!

Rhumb/Rum Lines

The remainder of the first day ran smoothly with several boats passed thanks to "Don't Panic" the trusty kite. The first night was similarly uneventful, with the exception of a slight glitch on the part of the autohelm during yours truly's first nightwatch - whilst travelling almost dead downwind the autohelm suddenly decided that steering straight actually meant hard over and suddenly Magrathea was almost head into wind! Thankfully the issue was resolved with a quick flick of the reset button.

We've made good progress today, running with the kite up at around eight knots and passing several of our competitors (most notably another Oyster 56, Curious, which unfortunately ripped its kite just as we passed). The early morning saw a pod of about thirty dolphins playing around the boat for over half an hour and later on we saw a line of them off our port seemingly taking part in a who can jump the highest competition.

If you've accessed the first set of positions via the ARC website (www.worldcruising.com/arc), you may be wondering why we're headed so far south. Forecasts are currently reporting a big "hole" in the wind off to the west and thus we're making a rhumb line for Cape Verde (NB rhumb line not to be confused with the "rum line" which points far more directly at St Lucia!) to try and avoid it until the wind picks up again and we can venture west.

Start-line pandemonium

Having donned our matching T-shirts and eaten some bacon sarnies we dropped our lines to the fanfare of a local brass band and waved goodbye to the spectators lining the marina. Last steady land for the next two and half weeks or so.

After pottering about in the harbour for an hour it was time to get the mainsail up in preparation for the start. To our surprise the newly acquired replacement second baton (lost en route to Gibraltar) hadn't been properly fitted by the sail repairers and was sticking out of the sail! Attempts to slot it into the back-car socket failed because it was too thick! Thus ensued a frantic race against time to get it ready for the start.

12:40 Mainsail down. Baton out and Nic sets to work with the chisel to narrow the end.

12:44 Baton now fits into the back-car socket but it's too long! Baton out again and Nic sets to work shortening it with the hacksaw!

12:50 Ten minute gun!

12:55 Five minute gun! Baton back into sail and now fits! Mainsail up with five minutes to spare. After sitting back from the start line last year, we decide to go for it this time round and approach the start line.

13:00 Start gun! Pandemonium! Yachts brought within mere centimetres of each other. Incompetent skippers (loonies) with no awareness of the rules of the road. Bangs as hulls collide. Shouts of surprise/anger/fear. Under Nic's steady hand we somehow escape a box-in and avoid the ensuing melee.

What with all the excitement, we concluded that it was high time we unleashed our bright blue kite with its reassuring "Don't Panic" slogan emblazoned iacross its front in big, friendly, pink letters for the benefit of the other crews. Soon we were zipping along at nine knots in the the ten knots of breeze. Only 2674nm to go - just around the corner then!

Palma-Gibraltar Delivery

"See if you're ready for the Atlantic", said Dad. "Use it as a warm up."

At some point whilst sprawled over the side of Magrathea, my body tethered to the cockpit by my harness line, the contents of my stomach in no such way restricted, it hit me: not the gallon of sea water lashed across my face by the ferocity of the gale force winds, but the realisation that this certainly wasn't all going to be plain sailing.

The delivery from Palma to Gibraltar hadn't started too badly. Confined to port for a couple of days due to bad weather forecasts, we eventually decided to make a dash for it through a weather window on Saturday afternoon. Breaking out of the bay, head into wind, was a little unpleasant, but as we rounded Ibiza at the end of my first three-hour watch things had settled down a little and I went to bed in relative comfort. Such comfort was, unfortunately, short lived.

I woke at 2am to what sounded like World War III breaking out. I made my way (via pinball-esque bouncing between walls) up onto deck and was greeted by a brilliant flash of lightning. Winds had reached 45knots, heavy rain was lashing the bimini and 5m waves were crashing Magrathea from beam to beam. Clearly sweet St. Swithen was on his evening off and big brother Thor had decided to wage war on Neptune in his absence. We had been expecting some rough weather from the forecasts, but not until 6am and not of this magnitude. Whilst Nic and Sarah rallied to bring some order to the boat by putting in some reefs, I bravely directed a torch to where it was needed!

Unable to sleep whilst being tossed about like a rag-doll, I spent an uncomfortable night in the cockpit until my turn on watch began again at 6am. Occasional checks of the horizon (which invariably turned up waves, some more waves and more waves) required standing up and looking out between the sprayhood and bimini. Seasoned professionals (Nic/Sarah) are able to judge a crashing wave well in advance and therefore adopt a meerkat-like popping up and down motion to avoid them. I, on the other hand, got a proper face drenching on more than once occasion and before long had a second skin of encrusted salt. To add to the misfortune, the heavy winds ripped out the second baton of the mainsail and the subsequent flapping began to enlarge the tear.

After a day or so the storm and its effects gradually eased. Despite its associated trials (no, I'm not just being a big girl. Nic rated it as one of his Top 5 storm nights!) it was quite an experience. And as for the spectacular sight of a pod of thirty-something dolphins whizzing up to the boat and surfing the bow wave on Monday afternoon well, in five seconds it more than compensated for the previous day.

The following two days continued to frustrate: it seemed the wind was set on halting our progress and blew head on for the whole journey. With no possibility of putting up the sales, we struggled along at an average of about 4knts. At times it felt like we were dragging a blue whale behind us! Eventually at about 7pm on Tuesday evening we made our final approach towards Gibraltar. A beautiful sunset over the Rock was enjoyed with a beer and the company of another pod of dolphins. At 8pm we finally dropped anchor, watched a DVD over dinner, and then settled in for our first good night's sleep in nearly four days!

Next stop: Gran Canaria!

And So It Begins Again

Crew are now starting to arrive in Palma to begin the process of shifting Magrathea down to Las Palmas in preparation for her second lap across the Atlantic.

Tree Frogs Part 2

ARC 2007

Well the reign of Don't Panic - the multi talented and highly attractive Magrathea cruising spinnaker had to come to a temporary end last night as the wind speeds rose and the wind moved almost directly behind our intended track. As it turned out we brought it down just in time before a series of big squalls and gusts running up to 28 knots for the first half of the night came up from behind. With the trusty opposite poled out genoa and Stormin Norman back on display we remained confident of our continuing speed -and our ability to control the boat. During the night we did manage averages of 9 knots towards our destination but with plenty of exhilarating swoops down waves that got us into the 11's. This morning as another lump of black cloud brought more gusts we clocked 16.8knots as we ran down a wave. Yet another record for old faithful Ray.(with admirable assistance provided by skipper).

We had our regular morning chat with arch rivals on the Oyster 56 Into the Blue and were delighted to find that in the last 24 hours we've caught up from a mile behind them to about 9 in front. We now hope that we can protect this lead over the last few miles of the course. We put this speed down to Don't Panic of course. Apparently they saw us with it flying during the afternoon yesterday (though we did not see them) but did not call us to avoid us making extra efforts to get past them. They were confident in their rig and speed but turns out that Don't Panic is a real winner.

At the 1200 reporting time we were 71 miles from the northern tip of St Lucia (the finish line is three miles around the corner from there) the wind is still strong though a little wayward. We have gybed the boat twice in the last hour and half to maintain our course and we are now down to 57 miles left to run. I will not tempt fate or the weather gods by any estimate of our arrival time - but I'm sure you can work out what we are thinking. Dawn has broken to a rather grey and wet scene out here. Everyone is also a bit jaded since the return of the poled out genoa plan has brought us back to our favourite rockin' and rollin'. Re-adopting the stance of a tree frog whilst in our bunks overnight was the requirement but despite days of practice none of us seems very good at it. Sleep was in short supply during the night. Nothing however will dampen the spirits of the crew now (apart perhaps from a sudden absence of wind) and morale has been further improved by a big breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon. Apart from the celebratory aspects of such a start to the day skipper advises we should all load up with as much fat as possible from now on in anticipation of it being washed away by obscene quantities of alcohol in the not too distant future.

And Now The End is Near

ARC 2007

..its not actually time to face the Final curtain but it looks like we are getting to the end of this particular chapter.(Whatever you do though whisper it quietly- we do not want the weather gods to hear and mess us around again just for the heck of it). We have had another pretty good day (and we had the highest distance run yesterday for all the similar Oysters) - wind unchanged and the spinnaker flying all day. Tonight we still have it up with the pole dragged right out to the beam so that we are running virtually straight downwind with Don't Panic acting as a symmetric spinnaker. We may have to do some radical changes in the night if the wind goes east as forecast (but when did it do what was forecast in the last two weeks) but otherwise we want to keep this up as it is noticeably quicker than flying the genoa. We are still trying to catch the last few miles on an oyster 56 just in front of us.

Otherwise its been another very quiet day - plenty of wind and sunshine and not too many waves so progress has been good again. (I've just noticed on the radar that we are being surrounded by five squalls so maybe the night is set to get exciting soon) We have only seen one boat today which we managed to catch and overtake about 6 this evening. Since it does look as though we will finish tomorrow we have been debating what we will miss once the trip is over. Strangely Chef is adamant that there is nothing at all but we think she is just kidding until she comes up with a killer idea. Nobody has really offered much else to be honest and in fact the only suggestion to date has been "not having any sense of guilt" You can sit around all day doing virtually nothing or just reading and sleeping and there is no need to feel at all guilty since there is absolutely nothing else you can do. Not a very frequent feeling back in the day to day real world. Perhaps that would be enough to entice some of you readers out there to try this some time in the future. In the meantime I've got to dash off and read a few pages of my novel - and I won't be feeling the slightest bit guilty about it.

Lets Go Fly a Kite

ARC 2007

It’s been a very good twelve hours for us with our decision to keep the spinnaker flying throughout the night. Remarkably (for the first time that we can remember on this trip) the wind stayed in virtually the same direction (SSE) and at almost constant strength (14 knots) for almost 24 hours since yesterday morning at 9 when we first put the kite up. During the night we did catch and overtake three boats - although it may well be that these were merely ones that overtook us during our Black Saturday.

This morning the wind has moved a little to the east so it has become harder for the spinnaker to work as we point further away from the wind. We have though just finished poling it out on the windward side and now we find that our excellent asymmetric spinnaker is in fact also a symmetric one in disguise. We may yet be able to fly it all the way to the finish - even if we do eventually get the promised easterly trade wind.

The forecast suggested that a move to E-NE would occur late yesterday and strengthen to 20 knots. Like all of the forecasts we have received this trip the forecast seems little better than guess work and we are still waiting for the decisive shift. One of the other yachts we spoke to yesterday lunchtime was anticipating this shift and had put on sails accordingly - it looks as though they will have been flying the wrong sailplan for the last 20 hours but we are not going to get terribly upset about it for them!

We have been checking up on the other Oysters around us this morning and still find we are all pretty close to each other. If things stay reasonably windy for the next 36 hours then we should all end up arriving at St Lucia in the early evening tomorrow - though almost certainly in the dark.. Our skipper knows the finish area (Rodney Bay) well from earlier trips and points out it can be quite tricky to enter in the dark. He has therefore kindly suggested that he will happily act as guide to any of the other Oysters interested. They just have to hang around outside the entrance (and the finish line) and we will lead them all across the finish line and into the bay. We all thought it was a very generous gesture.