Another day, another black night, another 200 miles plus, more and plenty of rain (no salt on the Savarna decks), and still hanging onto the lead in Class A division. Ace gained 2 miles overnight so we did better than expected. But another very cloudy day! Not like the pictures in the brochure.

The reason we did better than expected was because of heavy squalls and rain. In one case we came out of the squall on a bearing of 330 M when St Lucia is 260 M. Reefing the main, which we are doing plenty of, is proving am easy process with the Leisurefurl. Fortunately within a couple of hours we were back up to course again. We are sure this deviation, called Roly's foil, will be well evident on both Predict Wind tracking and the ARC yellowbrick tracker. We then had quite a light patch post squall but then got going at 9.2 to 9.5 knots for six hours or so in 20 knots true at a TWA of 90 degrees. A roller coaster bucketing ride in a pitch black night with constant rain. But looking at the noon position today it did pay off.

Pat sighted a green flare about 45 degrees off the bow at 0545 hrs. Nothing on AIS or radar or VHF or SSB radios and no response to flashing our deck lights. We lodged an incident report with the ARC office - a green flare is most unusual
We have not had any weather routing updates from Predict Wind and I have emailed them to to see what is happening. In the meantime we have run into S/SW winds (very unfavourable for us) and as we were headed to such an extent that we have now tacked onto starboard looking to hit the bottom of the low ahead and then lift on the expected NElys. Will be good to have this strategy confirmed by Predict Wind though. Depending on conditions further south will determine if we lose time or not on the boats in that sector.

All well on board, all systems operating ok and counting down the miles. Overnight we will be less than a 1,000 miles to run. Thinking about those white rum chasers already.
Cheers
Pam & Keith