Day 25

Since the encounter with the amazing ice display of The remnants of berg B15J we have been skirting the Northern edge of the known ice zone. Firstly in almost no wind, and now tacking upwind in 15 knots of wind.
Our watch was on deck through the entire night - at least the 4 hours of it that we have here, and we were paying close attention to the radar. We were looking at various echos on the radar, rain clouds, fog banks, waves, and distinguishing them from possible icebergs, when an echo on the screen suddenly appeared that was unmistakably Unmistakeably an iceberg, about the size of a large ship.,we tacked away towards the north, about 4 miles before it, but it was not quite light enough yet to see it visually..

If you are going to sail in the iceberg zone, this is the way to do it! In flat water, and sailing upwind, so the speed is not too high, and you can easily change direction and even stop and drift back in the direction you came in..Sailing downwind in strong breeze it would take several miles to get the gennaker furled. Though right now sailing upwind in the Southern Ocean feels a bit more like the BT Challenge than the trophee Jules Verne!

Am trying not to think at all about the miles we are losing to Groupama3, but that's why it's good to have had some miles in the bank, to be able to spend some of that lead to make the correct decisions to get to the finish first..

Day 25 and we have sailed further in that time than any other sailing boat. As a comparison, when I did the mini Transat in 2001, it took those 25 days to get to Salvador in Brasil. In the Vendee 2008, I had gotten to South of Cape Town, and in 2003 on Cheyenne's Round the world record we had just arrived south of Cape Leewin!

Ciao, am off to my bunk, cannot stay awake any longer!
Brian