Sea Watch. Race 1 Leg 2

Now our first ocean race begins across the Atlantic. On Monday morning the fleet slipped lines from Brest and we began our goodbye parade outside the marina. At our crew briefing at the local aquarium the previous day we were told that the first part of this race was going to be fairly rough, so we were slightly apprehensive but excited for what the next few weeks were to hold. The start put us towards the back of the fleet, but as this is a long distance race of 4,800 miles (lasting nearly a month), positions now are not too important, it's about getting the best out of our boat in the current weather conditions. So our crew went back  to the watch system  and into the routines of life at sea.

Already I have seen some very interesting wildlife, on Monday evening we were joined by a school of dolphins that followed us for a few hours and today we saw a whale about 50 meters away. On the whole, weather conditions have been good and not too rough. We are averaging between 8 and 11 knots, having done 184 miles in the first 24 hours, with mostly downwind sailing we hope to reach 200 miles a day in the future. After our daily brief today, Matt told us the forecast for the next week, it seems this race will become very exciting, 1,200 miles away there is a tropical revolving storm !

So I will keep you informed of what happens over the next week.