Maiden II has set off on her Antigua to Newport Record attempt and, after two days at sea, is clocking up an average boat speed of 15-18 knots. Simon Fisher (on loan from GBR Challenge) reported from the boat this morning. We are just over halfway on our 1,560 mile trip from Antigua to Newport. However, its a far cry from the America’s Cup yachting I have grown to get used to over the last few months. I’ve traded getting up at 0545 to go to the gym for standby at 0400, my protein-packed diet for pasta (with an array of interesting ways of making it taste not like pasta) and more importantly 10 knots upwind at 25 true for 30 knots at 100 true.

Despite the speed that you soon get used to, the trip so far has proved fairly uneventful. We have been on one tack all the way, usually in the America’s Cup after three and half hours I’ve seen more tacks than I can count and enough gybes for one day but out here on the maxi cat it’s one tack all the way. Having said that I am very much enjoying my first maxi cat excursion.

As I write, day is breaking, the boat is slipping effortlessly through the water and there hasn’t been a sail change for days. There is just one thing at the back of my mind nagging me – I went to Antigua on holiday to visit my girlfriend (Sam Davies), so how did I end up here slightly damp somewhere in the Atlantic? Well I’d better go, once again I appear to be the youngest so I’d better make the navigator a cup of tea!