It doesn’t get any better than that!

Position: 40,18.68N , 73,39.87W

Speed: 10 knots, Course: 128 deg.

It doesn’t get any better than that! At 1300, the Black Pearl hit the starting line clear ahead of her opponents and with more speed quickly stretched out to a 15 boat length lead. We lead the fleet out past the Statue of Liberty and under the Verrazano Bridge. What a way to leave the USA for the Pirates of the Caribbean. We are the only American boat in the Volvo Ocean Race and we have had a fantastic three weeks in the USA. Today’s start was the icing on the cake.

It is 3 hours since the start and ABN 1 has already passed us. We are sailing upwind in 14 knots of wind. We are in second place with Brunel just to leeward in third, followed by Brasil, Ericsson and ABN2. I am not sure how the sked will rank us as we are on the wind sailing to the southeast and the course to the UK is more like 060.

Our routing has us sailing on port tack for about 6 hours while the wind shifts right 30 degrees and builds to 25 knots ahead of a low system coming out of the Chesapeake. Then we will be tacking onto starboard and probably holding that for 36 hours. We will get close to Nova Scotia on Saturday.

We are settling in for what will be a long and cold 10 days. It will get rough later tonight and all day tomorrow, tomorrow night and the moderating Saturday afternoon. We will be focused on keeping the boat in one piece if it gets real rough.

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean