1130 375nm to to WP3. 165nm 24hr run. Tuya wins. Cycle of regular then confused seas continued through night and today. 3 reefs in foresail, 50% jib most of day, morning just 30% jib in shitty sea and 25 to 30 knot winds. White caps getting blown away, streaks of foam on surface. Some seabirds including a tropic bird passed …

1130 71.7nm 24 hr run. Busy night. NE trade began to puff in, knocking us to 290, 280°. Tuya woke me at 0100, doused kite, set jib and full foresail. Wind increased at 3am – reefed foresail, 7kts boatspeed. Rain heavy. 50litres of water collected. Wind then came and went, mostly died. Unreefed main, hand steering as boatspeed below 3.8knots …

Tuya handed over steering to Stewart as a new wind was arriving. At first it was just gentle puffs, arising from astern. To feel them on our face meant it was already faster than our ground speed which was 5 knots. That should be enough to fill the kite so we shut the engine down at 0815 and hoisted the …

1130 507.2 miles to Waypoint 2 115.8 mile 24 hour run Stew wins the ‘guess the daily run” game again! (Stew 115 miles, Zaya 112 miles, Tuya, more optimistic and accurate this time, 117 miles) Later, the wind veered further and we could only steer 330° while keeping 3 sails full. So, we dropped the staysail. The wind continued to …

Passed Waypoint 1 during the night. The Quarter way point. 1130 751.1 miles to Waypoint 2 128.9 mile 24 hour run Position 2°25’.102 S 25° 29.371’W 1130 and the end of Day 6. We have completed one quarter of the passage. Our favorite times of the day are: 1130 to find out the days run; sunset drinks on the foredeck, …

1130 132.0 miles to Waypoint 1 147.5 24 hour run Encountered our first rain squalls with wind last night. I got on the tiller to help Romeo, then Juliet as the wind was capricious, flogging the kite at times. Hand steered OK. Need to keep the kite in one piece. This is only Day 5 !. The squalls passed after …

1130 279.5 miles to go to WP1 127.2 mile 24 hour run Steady wind from the SE all night and day. Glad to be skipping Brazil, the country that took my countryman, Peter Blake. The 25 to 30 days at sea may turn out to be a far more rewarding experience than the official corruption and thievery we have heard …

1130 604.5nm to Waypoint 1 144.3nm 24 hour run Day 2 of our anticipated month long voyage. Ran all day under kite. Black rain clouds approach in procession from the south. We receive 20 litres of rainwater from 2 light showers, our first rainwater since leaving Cape Town. Boiled eggs and marmite bread for breakfast. We fried Mahe fillets in …

Departing Ascension Island bound for Barbados 748 nautical miles to Waypoint 1 I divided this 3,000 mile passage into 4 legs of equal length. Apart from providing us with some milestones to look forward to and the psychological boost from ticking them off, one by one, each leg would be marked by some event along the way. We departed the …

With the swells gone today was the opportunity we needed to tighten the port side aft beam lashing. Any sort of waves make working under the bridge deck in the dinghy a little more challenging. With both girls up top we passed the lashing to and fro, using the locking pattern we’d learned from Hokule’a. The girls did the lacing …