Fifth day at sea and our first belated blog. As by now well reported the start was not as in the brochure! It was cloudy, blustery, squally and as we headed out to sea a big swell developed. Not much has changed! We have been running downwind with wind speeds of about 25-30 knots and a large swell. The boat is rolling all over the place and difficult to keep anything in one place. We have broken our main genoa having inadvertently gybed it several times in strong winds so that the clew ring has nearly parted from the body of the sail. So we are using the smaller genny which is working surprisingly well giving us speeds of about 6 knots or more. But it would be nice to go faster in this wind but steering would be more difficult so perhaps we would be using the smaller sail in any case. We plan to get it down and repair it when the sea settles down a bit. No chance to use our new parasailor yet (only in winds less than 10 knots). But we have had some lovely nights with a wonder
Full moon and sky full of stars. Crew all remain very cheerful considering the conditions and full of humour and we have had some excellent meals miraculously cooked in a rolling galley. The size of the atlantic is beginning to dawn on us, but so far so good and we are making respectable progress compared to other boats of our size. No fish caught yet. More soon....