Day 36

Sailing upwind on starboard tack in 18 knots of wind, full main and staysail up, it's bright sunshine, and that sun is pretty much directly overhead now.

We passed into the Tropics today, and there about 1200 miles to the equator, and 4500 total to the finish off Ushant Island. Next milestone is the Equator and we will be trying to break Loick's brother Bruno's record from Equator to Equator..

It's precision sailing now, with much fine trimming of the sails to get the last little bit of speed through the subtly and ever changing winds and waves.the helmsman is key, he is best placed to see the new wind arriving and can tell how the boat is balanced by the speed, heel angle, and rudder angle,

Very different to the Southern Ocean sailing, where the sails were very well eased, so there was less trimming and most of the control was then through the helmsman, who was not necessarily trying to always go as fast as possible, but to pick the right speed and angle to negotiate each wave safely..

Brian