This section between the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands has got to be one of the most perfect places in the world to sail,... Warm water, moderate winds, flat seas and no squalls should make the favorite sailing cocktail.. We are enjoying it, but at the same time there is an incredibly tight race with our sister MOD70 Concise...
Last night we both sailed through an area of light winds, with winds down to as low as 2 knots for us, and never more than 10 knots all night… The stars were incredibly bright, and reflecting in the calm waters.. A beautiful sight, but we would rather have had more wind! We think that we had slightly less wind than Concise and on 2 consecutive position sheds, 4 hours apart, we lost large amounts of miles to them... It was tense times, coaxing every bit of speed out of the boat, to get to the stronger wind we knew was lying in wait to our south. We were pretty relieved at the 8am shed, just after dawn, to see that we had stopped loosing miles and were matching pace..
Since sunrise the wind has slowly picked up and it is perfect downwind sailing this afternoon as we approach the westernmost of the Cape Verde Islands..
Today squadrons of flying fish are taking off to escape us as we charge towards them at 20 knots.. Just a few minutes ago, We just passed a cruising yacht on their way to the Caribbean, sipping on cold drinks, but we would rather be on this machine, less comfortable but so much faster..
This morning we winched Henry up to the top of the mast to check everything was fine...It all was ok, so he paused to take some pictures and videos.. And the obligatory 'top of the rig at 20 knots' selfie..
So still all to play for on our 3000 mile match race.. Too close to call right now. Lets see our relative position when we gybe west later.
Bye for now....My turn to drive -yes!
