Dan Orem, our usual blogger is feeling slightly indisposed, so this entry comes from Nick Sr. Here's how the race has gone so far: We got an OK start at 17:10 on Friday. We lost some ground at first until we got the sails adjusted properly. Then we started to catch up on Saturday, but again lost ground when we headed further west than the rest of the fleet in search of more wind. The wind that was supposed to be there wasn't, so we again lost ground on the other boats in our class. Yesterday we had good wind and again started moving up on the other boats (at least the ones we could see on our AIS.) We started crossing the Gulf Stream late yesterday afternoon. After dire predictions of huge square waves, the crossing was a bit of a non-event. Through the night last night we had good wind and sailed fast. Today the wind started to moderate in mid-morning. It's now right behind us and not strong enough to keep the sails full as we go down and back up over the waves. So it's pretty lumpy and not much fun. Every time a wave rolls underneath us it spills all the wind from the sails, then they refill with a bang. The off watch crew is having a hard time sleeping because of all the racket down below.
Meanwhile the generator won't start. I suspect that all the rocking has stirred up some crud in the diesel tank that has clogged the fuel filter. The main engine still runs, so we can use it to charge the batteries (running in neutral of course.) If we get some calm seas, I'll change the generator fuel filter, if we don't the generator will have to wait until we arrive in Bermuda.
The crew is pretty well rested, very well fed and everybody gets along and does their part, so we're a happy ship. We expect to arrive in Bermuda some time on Wednesday - depending on the wind it could be early or late. Life is good, but more wind would make it better.
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