Update 2 – We had a tough break a few hours ago

Position: 46,2.26N , 39,21.23W

Speed: 17 knots, Course: 35 deg.

We had a tough break a few hours ago. Our big mast head running spinnaker tore in half. There was no flogging or luffing, it just parted. It was blowing about 24 knots at the time. So now we have a smaller reaching sail on and we are sailing a higher angle to try to keep our speed up. This is going to cost us a bit for sure. How much depends on what the wind does over the next 6 hours while Justin Ferris and Dirk de Ridder repair the sail with our onboard sewing machine. I hope the wind comes up another couple of knots then we can put the fractional spinnaker on and be just fine.

Other than that, we ere having a good day, reeling in Brasil1 to 11 miles from the 40 mile lead they had on us yesterday. The wind has come up nicely today and we are making good miles toward England finally. It has been a very slow leg so far. It looks like we will do the first half of the leg in 6 days and the second half in about 3.5 days.

The general plan now is to sail to the northeast on port tack tonight then gybe tomorrow morning onto starboard and head east with southwesterly winds coming from a low pressure that is catching up to us. Then the wind really builds..maybe to 40 knots or more. The router is calling for gybes every 8 hours so that will be interesting to see how we decide to manage that. Do we just go straight or do we attempt the maneuvers? Naturally, the router wants us to gybe in the night.

So for now it is a bit of anxiety; waiting for the guys to finish the repair of the spinnaker and praying for the wind to come up so it doesn’t matter.

PC

Pirates of the Caribbean