Received from Brian at 7:30 am 23/1/2011
Hope all good; this is a French keyboard and some of the keys are in different places to a QWERTY keyboard, so excuse the spelling…
Yesterday was a great start, beautiful dawn departure from the Brest harbour in light winds, just like going for one of our many training sails, except for the crowd on the dock to see us off, and Ice on the deck reminded us it was still winter.
Having no engine we were expertly pulled off the dock with 4 RIBS and then towed out of the Bay by our biggest RIB. After hoisting the main it was a short sail of an hour to the startling through the Chenal du Four.
As we approached the line the wind dropped from 15 to 6 knots, this was not looking like a spectacular start. Fortunately and hopefully as a sign, the wind picked up just as we crossed the line at 11.11.45, the voice of the official timekeeper on Le Creac,h lighthouse, telling us we were off, and thqt wqe needed to be back by dinnertime on the 11th of March…..good to know..
Once past Ushant the wind returned and we started to hit the average speed we need round the world, 25 knots. The sun was out and the seas were flat. I managed to grab a couple of hours sleep.
By the night the wind was up to 30 knots with a short, steep sea, and is now touching 40 as we sweep past Cape Finisterre. We have changed right down to 2 reefs and the genoa but its hard to keep a steady speed in the low 30s, top speed 45 knots, but that,s not somewhere we want to stay very long.. A few stuffs of the bow made sleep a little hard to find, so glad of catching some zzs earlier. Now on standby 4 till 8 before next on watch until 12
All good on the maxi BPV and we seem to be outpacing our routing so that’s all good.
Brianx
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