Day 9

We are really moving fast now, its actually hard to do less than 30 knots of speed.. Wind is 27 kn from 135 TWA.

If all goes well it should be a good mileage for this day. Prob the best of the trip so far, though nothing like the 900 miles this boat has done during its Transatlantic Record, which took a total of 3.5 days. We are in a marathon here, not a sprint, with nearly 40 more days to sail, and besides, the conditions are not as good as they were then..

Most of the multihull 24 hour records lately have been made leaving New York going east to Europe in the dead flat seas off the East Coast, but there have been several monohull 24 hour records broken right here, south of the St Helena High, because the seas can be relatively flat and the N wind strong, ahead of a front..

Just this year Loick Peyron broke the double handed IMOCA 60 record here with JP Dick, a record which before was held by Alex Thomson and Andrew Cape, also made in the same area.

In the Volvos several records have been made here too. ABN and then Ericcson 4, II believe, in the last race..

Suffice to say, it's great sailing and we are making the most of it, though being prudent with the boat.

It's colder now, with water temp to 15 C, and it's back to full foul weather gear on deck to protect against the spray too..

Anyway time for a nap now in my off watch..At 1800 pos 40S 27W
Wind 27kn from NNW
Small gennaker, staysail, 2 reefs..

We have just entered the legendary Roaring Forties and are making good miles to longitude of the Cape Of Good Hope..The blue skies are back after disappearing this morning..fantastic fast sailing..

It's Loick's birthday today, and there is a sign in the galley inviting anyone to our Beach Bar Terrace for a little celebration. Am catering for 14, as guests staying outside the resort will find finding the venue somewhat difficult, and parking a real nightmare..

Saw probably the last flying fishes today. Both Pym and I saw different ones, each of them the biggest we had ever seen, and we have seen a few in our time - they were the 'Dreamliners' of flying fish - the size of small salmon! I wonder how old they would have been? water temp was 15.7C, so that matches to the first flying fish seen off Lisbon in the N. Hemisphere in 16C water In our 8 day traverse of the flight path of flying fish from 39n to 39s, I have concluded that they are born in the warm equatorial regions and can move outwards to colder waters as they grow older and bigger. Will have to some reading about them on return, maybe there is a new aerial Moby Dick novel just waiting to be written..though prob not by me..

Bye for now


Brian