Getting hotter

Our current location on the chart shows that we are about 250 nautical miles SW of the Canary islands and 600nm N of the Cape Verde islands, I can tell we are getting closer to the Equator; it's hot and it's going to get hotter! Below deck it's even worse and trying to get some sleep isn't easy in these stuffy conditions even with some battery operated fans working.

We have been making really good ground and over the past 24 hours having covered 240nm, with a brilliant position of 2nd place, however if I look out of the companionway now I can see Henri Lloyd hot on our heels about 2 miles away. So we are constantly pushing the boat to its best by checking that our sails are set in the right position and they do not make any more headway. Over the past 24 hours the wind has dropped slightly, and now we are sailing with the wind coming from behind, we have our mainsail and code 2 (medium) spinnaker up, this sail gave me my first job as sail repairer yesterday, we noticed the code 2 had a right angle rip about the size of an A4 piece of paper, so we dropped it, repaired it, wooled it (folding the sail into a sausage shape and tying strands of wool round it so when it is sent up again the wool pops and the sail opens up) and in 50 minutes hoisted it up again! Not bad but next time we will be even faster. As it was David Hindson and Ross Turnbulls Birthdays, we named the repair on either side after them: Dangerous Dave and Terrible Turnbull, Happy Birthdays! My big hope is that the repair holds, although I am sure in time there will be more sails to repair!