“Hello to all our families from our great Atlantic adventure aboard Spirit. Day Three, and we are approx 450 miles from Las Palmas, just another 2,300 to go.

“We started on Sunday at 1240 and it is now 1700 on Tuesday. Everybody on board is well and we are all getting into the routine of life aboard an ocean racer. Not your average boat by a long way. Conditions are pretty cramped as you would expect, as this boat is geared up for racing not comfort.

“The food situation is surprisingly good though, better then I had expected. Sleep was very hard at first, a mixture if nerves, excitement and getting used to the different watches, but mostly, sleeping in this boat is like sleeping inside a drum listening to all the strange noises she makes as ropes are eased and as Spirit carves her way through the waves.

“The levels of activity are very high to keep her racing at full speed all the time. We have been split into two watches and already the friendly competition between each watch has started, for example who can do the most mileage or the highest speed on their watch. We also have decided to have a few competitions. One is a pool to decide who can guess how long it will take us to get to St Lucia, another is, who will fall asleep on a watch first? I am afraid that I have lost that one already!

“Everyone on board is getting on well together, which is great. The permanent crew of Spirit are very helpful and their experienced is a real help to those of us new to the yacht. We are all excited about trying to break the record that Spirit broke last year, so as we are settling down, we are beginning to push ourselves harder as our skipper predicted. We have a long way to go, but we are all up for the challenge.”

Logged by Watch 2 at 1700 on Tuesday 23 November.