24:05.30N 018:20.60W

On the day of the start there was a different kind of buzz in the air. The excitement of the culmination of years of planning for just short of a hundred crews. The breeze was alight with anticipation.

As we pushed off the dock and out of the marina, we were treated to a chorus of horns and cheering well-wishers. The sight of everyone lined up along the harbour wall waving their flags was definitely one to behold.

Passing yachts hollered their best to each other as they crossed. Comrades, not competitors. Everyone bound by the same desire to see each other safe and happy in Cape Verde and then Grenada, a daunting adventure complete.

The cats set off first. Before you know it, ours has arrived. Now:… “It’s not a race.” However, a start line is a start line and you can take the sailor out of Cowes, but you can’t take Cowes out of the sailor.

The forecast had been for strong winds and big seas on the start line, so despite our scorching start, we took some time getting organised to put up the A-sail and let some boats through in the process. We were also married to our plan of skirting around the acceleration zone rather than fully committing to the potential added strain on the boat.

As the fleet spread out, we enjoyed settling into the rhythm of sailing our own passage and enjoying the process. We sailed a way off to the East of the island, keeping it on the horizon as we made our way south.

When sunset came we dropped the A-sail so as to not take risks at night.

The night sky was full of a host of twinkling stars. The sea wasn’t going to let the sky steal the show though, and whilst short of a full phosphorescence event, there was a nice skittering trail of bioluminescence dancing in our wake.

We wiled away the hours identifying the constellations Stokey had taught us about in his celestial navigation lectures.There’s a big difference between being able to spot a few stars versus being able to navigate your way across the Atlantic with them though!

The wind whipped up for the second day on the water. The waves too! It makes for a good workout handling the helm as the 3-4m waves try to pick up the aft quarter and have it overtake the rest of the boat. The swell would settle into a regular rhythm of rollers, then every so often the big waves would come, always as a pair, sending anything not fixed down in the cabin flying. On the bright side we managed 13.7kts surfing down a wave and seemed to be making up the difference of the light airs for the first day.

Another factor of the increased wind and boat speed was the fact it was putting extra strain on our Watt & Sea hydroelectric generator. In Las Palmas we had identified a point of potential failure in the mounting and had installed a soft-failure solution. The skewing motion combined with the acceleration down the waves proved too much for the fitting and it popped up, swinging in the waves. After replacing the “fuse” with something beefier, it was back in the water and generating power before long. Unfortunately that was not to last though and the upgraded solution failed too. Finally we replaced it with a piece of spectra and now at it seems to be holding.

The forecast predicted squalls overnight. The last thing we wanted was to be trying to reef the sails a hundred miles off the coast of Western Sahara in pitch black in the middle of the night. We decided to preempt the situation and reef before the sun set, much like we had dropped the A-sail the night before. Sure enough, the wind steadily build during the darkness, peaking around dawn when I was woken by the scramble of all available hands rushing up on deck to get the headsail away during a sudden squall of up to 30kts of wind.

As quickly as it arrived, it had passed, and we were able to put out some more headsail again. We kept a close eye on the next bank of cloud and it obligingly skirted to the east of us rather than hitting with another blast of ferocious winds and rain. As it moved on by we were treated to the emergence of the sun to our east and a rainbow to our west.

As we stand now, we have continued in much the same way for most of the day so far. The sun is shining, the waves are rolling, and the wind is steadily huffing us along down the coast towards our destination.

Oh no, I spoke too soon! The barometer just started an alarm for a gale warning due to a rapid change in pressure. Looks like I’d better get back to it!

More updates to follow,

Hugo