Sat 5th / Sun 6th December - Under Pressure

As we come to within 400miles of the finish we start to pick up other ARC boats on the radar. A very clever system called AIS tells you a vessels length, heading and speed. Unfortunately this for us means confirmation that we are sailing slower than a lot of our competitors. Our ‘broken’, ‘damaged ‘and ‘torn ‘list has grown to the size of an average families weekly supermarket shopping list! ( Nicki has apparently put ‘Foxfields’ on the market in an attempt to raise funds for repairs.) This along with our ‘battered tackle’, fortunately a nautical term, has meant our race position suffering. It also meant putting our thinking caps on. As the repaired parasailor is now poled out on the starboard side with the main boom, we decide to lash the broken spinnaker pole to the main deck so that it protrudes mainly out on the port side and we run a sheet through it to the partially unfurled genoa so we can goose wing the boat. (Skip said I should comment that I wrote this all by myself!)All for an extra ½ knot of speed! Our radar also showed up a tanker heading in our direction whose length was measured as a percentage of a nautical mile – we made a note to definitely avoid this guy!
Had a day off fishing yesterday as stocks on board are good and Phil is concerned about the environmental impact he is having with his hugely successful rods. Sauteed Skipjack Tuna steaks for dinner last night washed down with a good bottle of wine from Nicki’s private cellar (promise we will replace x) made for an excellent evening. A midnight jibe of the parasailor gave Skip, Marty and I, a very late job to do as the wind direction had changed from the forecast. We are now on a good course to hopefully take us into St. Lucia with an ETA of Monday 9pm (just in time for last orders!)
Love to all at home
Andy x

Have added picture of Marty's "Blue foot" problem!

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