It’s Wednesday afternoon and we’re now only 250nm from the finish. The first three boats are already in the Victory Bar at Port Louis Marina. These three definitely didn’t read the “it’s a rally” memo; it turns out that the very impressive leading boat, the Italia 15.8 design, Nessum Dorma, has steered by hand the whole way across and is manned by a full set of largely full time racing sailors. I don’t think we’ve hand steered at all, our autopilot has done a stellar job!

After the last blog we had just headed south in search of wind and to take advantage of the expected windshift. On the Saturday morning we were looking for the latest position update from the fleet with anticipation when we received a shocking private WhatsApp message from our friends Rachel and Rob on Ægle. “We’ve had a less positive morning…we’ve had major structural issues….”. It turned out that the mast wall had failed next to the gooseneck fitting (between the boom and the mast). Fortunately they had reacted quickly to drop the sails before the loading broke the mast completely and the rig stayed intact.

A few days before another ARC+ boat had lost their mast completely after a rigging failure. They had turned and motored the 500 nm back to Mindelo. For Ægle it couldn’t have been worse timing, literally half way across the Atlantic. Fortunately Ægle has an exceptionally strong team, they pulled themselves together, reinforced the base of the mast by lashing their spinnaker pole to it and calculated their fuel. They couldn’t stress the mast by sailing but they had enough diesel to motor to Grenada. A massive blow but not disastrous* thank goodness. The fleet rallied round and offered to transfer fuel but fortunately not needed. We’ll see them in Grenada a couple of days later as they motor at 5-6 knots rather than sailing at 6 to 8. Both incidents are reminders that we have to be prepared for anything out here. [* fingers crossed all remains well, they currently have 460NM to go, we don’t want to tempt fate!]

The sailing for next three days was remarkably constant. We sailed on the same gybe at the same wind angle. We occasionally put a reef in at night but the winds were almost constantly between 16 and 22 knots. Easy to make good progress and the stronger wind band to the south meant we were faster than the boats to our north. We finally broke 200nm for a 24 hour period as we proceeded at pace. We also had an unexpected visitor, a Cattle Egret (a tropical heron). These migratory birds are found in Africa and South America. We didn’t expect to find one in mid-Atlantic!

On Tuesday morning Anne-Laure, Lucy and I had the slightly unusual experience of attending a court hearing at Winchester Crown Court. A year ago we tragically lost David Haw, our dear friend and crew member on our J/70 race boat, who was killed in a RIB accident late at night after a social event during a regatta in which we were taking part. The RIB driver pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence and the police and court had kindly arranged for us to attend the sentencing hearing by secure video link. It was important for us to get some closure and, thanks to Starlink, we could be part of it and also support David’s parents Gill and Richard and David’s girlfriend Alice, albeit remotely.

As we headed further west we started to enter the region where squalls become more frequent. We heard more boats on the skippers WhatsApp group commenting on close encounters. Squalls form in hot climates when clouds build and bring windy and gusty conditions to those near them. These towering clouds can develop really quickly and can cause significant changes in windspeed and direction, especially if they are raining. They are a standard part of handling an ocean crossing and are usually easy to see by day and at night and are also visible on the radar where they show as red blobs. The challenge at night is that we may only have one person on watch when they appear and if we need to reef as a precaution we need to get everyone up.

Yesterday, Tuesday morning, I was asleep off watch at 0500 when Lucy knocked on the cabin door… there are standing instructions to wake me in certain circumstances … e.g. the wind has changed strength or direction; there are other boats nearby that may get in dangerous proximity; we have issues with the boat itself. What I didn’t expect was to have 2 out 3 three together….

“David please can you come up, we’ve got a squall gusting 26 knots”

—– “Sure, I’m coming” …get up and start to put on my shorts

“David, now gusting 30!” – up the stairs quickly!

Lucy and I looked at the chart-plotter together; not only did we have several squalls (the large red patches) and there were also 2 obvious cargo ships on parallel courses to us but there was also a third, under a squall itself, on a collision course and only about 20 minutes away. We needed to act promptly but also not rush. I asked Adrian (who Lucy had also woken up) and Lucy to start preparing to put another reef in the mainsail but wait for me to put it in. I called the oncoming ship on VHF (they were the “give way” vessel under the IRPCS – the International Rules for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea). There was a short pause as the radio operator got their Captain or Watch leader. I explained our situation and position and asked them to alter course 10 degrees to starboard to pass behind us. He confirmed he could see us on radar and he’d take responsibility for avoiding us. With this confirmed we could then turn our attention to putting in the reef without worrying about the ship. 20 minutes later we were sailing with reduced sail, the squall had started to ease and the ship had passed behind us. A bit of a drama but no real risk.

Tuesday is my usual work day at home and, having had a quick shower, I had to attend a management meeting in Bracknell at 0700 (1000 UK) and then a board meeting in London from 0800 to 1300. I think this was the first time any of us had done this from mid ocean! For the first time I was cursing Starlink rather than thanking it!

It’s now Wednesday afternoon and we are anticipating our arrival in Grenada. We’ve run out of bananas and Snickers for the night watch and the rum punches are calling. I’ve just submitted our arrival documentation; the pre-clearance for the boat and immigration using the Sailclear system. We have just got a couple of hundred miles to go but also have to stay ahead of David and Ines on Nuvem Magica (an Outremer 5X) and Audrey and Ryan on Blue Wonder (a Broadblue Rapier), they are currently 9 and 19nm behind us but both boats should be quicker than ours. I think it might actually be a bit of a ra..ra..race for the last day!