Made a good average speed of 5.5kts almost due south and then, having cleared the wind shadow of the island, turned towards the Cape Verde islands. We are taking the South route to avoid the low pressure system further north as much as we can. Wind dropped during the afternoon to about 10 kts, rather less than the boat enjoys! The strange thing is that we can hardly see any other of the 220 participants - just 3 on various horizons. Hope we are going the right way!
However, two great successes. Firstly,the DuoGen (a device which can either operate as a windmill or with different blades be towed as a generator) has been in tow mode all night and day and kept our battery power stable allowing us to use the autohelm all night without running out of power.We supplement during the day with a solar panel.
Secondly, we used our water maker to make 70 lts of water to refill our main tank. Strange how one can be so enthused by this but it means that two of our main pieces of kit have been used to good effect!
Finally we have had our new Parasailor (a type of spinnacker) up all day. It is really impressive and so far has stabalised the sailing of the boat with the wind directly behind us magnificently.See the slot in the middle with the aerofoil in it! In these light winds we shall probably keep up all night.
m_Parasailor