Our first 24 hours at sea has certainly been eventful. We had an excellent start, which was no mean feat, considering there were 200 boats all trying to cross the start line at the same time; fortunately we had Andrew on board to steer us through the mayhem. It wasn't long before we had the cruising kite up as we headed down the east coast of Gran Canaria and with a good 12 to 15 knot wind behind us we were soon in the leading group of boats. By the evening we were really "smoking" averaging 9 to 12 knots in 20 knots of breeze, we even touched 18.5 knots for a short time. The boat was going like a dream, UNTIL the original swivel shackle (part of the old sock) on the kite snapped and then all hell broke loose, but with good team work we managed to retrieve the remains of the spinnaker from the water and it wasn't long before we were on our way again (this is the same spinnaker we had repaired in Lanzarote for the sum of 1300 Euros, It lasted 6 hours!) The down side to the loss of the cruising kite, is that we have now only got our large spinnaker, which is only good up to 18 knots of wind and this will limit our progress if the Trade winds really start to kick in.
For the rest of the night there were no dramas - with the wind down to 8 knots and our speed dropping drastically and only increasing marginally this morning. We won't know our position in the fleet until later tonight when the ARC sends through everyone's position by email. It's now all down to what route you take to cross the Atlantic and what weather we get.
Peter Faulkner, Skipper