At last the big day arrived, Sunday 20 November the starting day of the ARC. We had been working like mad on the boat fore 14 days, long lists of tasks was attended to.

Countless times we went down to the chandlery to get some special parts for the boat. A new spinnaker boom in carbonfibre was transported from Norway, but alas the terminals in both ends were wrong.

The correct ones came with the last crewmember. We are five men aboard. The skipper is a keen racing sailor, we have many sails and all kind of communication equipment. We managed to position ourselves nicely on the start line, came over in 10th.

First little wind from north-east. When reaching the corner by the airport, strong head winds from south-west made us struggling to get down the big light sail. Three reefs in the main, and a small jib made us fly into the increasing waves.

Our crew suffered seasickness and there was lots of chaos downstairs, but during the night we finally lost sight of the Maspalomas light house. During one of the night watches one of our crew members fell on the floor and hit the base of the stairs with his back first. He became totally disabled by intensifying pains in the kidney area, and after some time we decided to head fore the island of Hierro and get a doctor.

Our injured crewmember decided to sign off at Restinga fishing harbour. We headed to sea again, after having contacted the ARC office, informing them of our unhappy situation. We hope this will bee acceptable for the regatta committee, but the four of us will continue anyhow.

On the third day out from Hierro we started to hear screeching sounds from the rudder. After closer examination it turned out to bee a loosening nut on one of the bolts that made the sounds. We had proper spare parts, replaced the nut, oiled and greased well and hope we will not experience more trouble for some time.

Our route is due west, which is a bit frightening regarding the development of a storm centre further west. The last meteorological map warned that this low now is turning into a tropical storm. So we decided to tack east to make more room between this low and our boat.

Our position now is 24.04 N 024.24 W.

Today, Friday 25 November we have been sailing with our gennaker and the spinnaker all day, making more than 10 knots in the surf, heading due west. The last weather report stated that the low is slowing up, and turning north-east, so we hope that it will bee gone when we reach 30 degrees west.

More from Euphoria later, greetings from Kalle, Jan G, Aage and Jan K