It seems like ages ago now, but Monday night/Tuesday morning was pretty horrendous weather-wise, and a few problems occurred on Roxy (though I understand we got off very lightly compared to some of the fleet).

We had a power problem, therefore no autopilot, no computer and no Iridium, but these all have now been sorted, and mainly loose connections due to the violent slamming of poor boat on Monday night. We had paper charts out for a while.

Yesterday was a fine day spent reaching, regularly filling the cockpit with tons of sea water, and going fast. By dawn this morning, it was dry on deck. Other than a couple of hours spent fixing a technical problem, it has been a constructive day: sunshine, big spinnaker sailing, we did not get stuck in the Azores High, we have found the trade winds, ate foie gras and jambon cru, started drying out boat as everything is wet, took off wet seaboots, and now heading south at pace. Not a bad day at the office.

We are running a one hour on/ one hour off watch system, since we are hand-steering with the big spinnaker and 20 knots of wind. The autopilot is good, but doesn’t quite manage the very small margin of error with this sail combination. In fact it wiped the boat out in spectacular fashion, just as we were enjoying some freeze-dried dinner at sunset…

Miranda
Position: 38 40N 13 12W