Pic: The second system to hit New England...

It hard to believe we could still have stories after 7 days. No sweat when every day throws a whole new challenge at you. Its now been 35 hours at 19 to 26 knots of breeze with following seas. We are hauling!

The crew still seems delighted to be here...OK, probably not delight. When I came up for my watch at 4:00 AM, Tony and Norm were ecstatic about both having seen us break 10 knots. Since hull speed is theoretically 8, we might have gotten a little out of the water on the face of the swell and raced down it. Wheeee!

Since we now have a bet on first sight of land, I had to carefully ascertain whether we were at max hull speed, and possibly on the edge of lost control, to make 3 bucks...or just, in need of a fresh face to decide to slow it down. That said, Norm and I brought in the Jib 30 % and we are now holding at 7-8 knots constantly...with a few wave pushes to 9.8. Wheeee!

Recognizing this was coming, yesterday John built some sandwiches for us for lunch. The team eat slowly. I learned they thought the other half might be dinner. However, Joanne bought us Burritos for the last voyage, and they are perfect for this occasion. A little heart burn is good for the soul.

I recently remember seeing one of these idiotic reality TV shows where people do really dumb things for attention. On this particular version, a young man rode the inside of one of the giant driers at the laundromat. Serious! Well I have a better idea for him next time. Join us.

I keeping hearing John, on deck, asking if you got up in the morning and there was weather like this, would you go out in it? Well John, this would make great reality TV.

News comes slowly at sea. This is one of the good things, I might add. We learned the storm we motored for the first three days to get south of, has ripped up New Jersey, New York and Cape Cod. Norm lost a tree (good news, something for him to do when he gets home). Toby and Joanne have lost the weather vane on the Copula for the third time. I feel sorry for the Bronx of all things.

Howling along, we might make land fall tomorrow night...amazing actually. The boats sailing fantastic, the crew is getting sleep and eats. Alls well at 30degrees of heel and howling through the night.