The wind forecast for today was pretty much as expected and so we kept up the parasail over night and gained around 80 miles in 24 hours on most of our direct competitors. The combination of the fast hulls, aft dart keels and forward helm allowed us to be confident and secure when sailing fast with the big sail.

However, the wind is always the master and the latest forecast shows that the Easterly trade winds we have been waiting for are about to arrive and with a bit more strength than we were hoping – the decision to swap the parasail for the jib was made just in time and the deck crew worked hard to get the sail down, packed and stored in the spinnaker locker before the real wind began.

The wind continued to grow and with it came big following seas – however, this meant we could again track directly down the course to St Lucia and our VMG was still pretty good.

The overnight watch keeping routine is now well established and easy with each of us taking 2 hour shift at the helm. With little to see or be concerned about and the most comfortable watch keeping position possible then our stints pass quickly and we can go back to bed. Even though the wind increased and the sea state continued to make surfing inevitable, the boat was able to easily keep things under control on autopilot without the need for any manual intervention.

Mark