January 2023

We’ve got less than 24 hours to run on this amazing adventure so time for the final blog Its so close now, we can smell the showers - we really really need one!! Also a cold beer and burgers and the pool and internet! Last night was fun - we dropped the kite before a big dark squall cloud, hoisted again after the squall, dropped again for the the next squall and then spent the morning under a poled out headsail in the increased breeze and sea state. Now we are back under our Ullman S4 and the world is looking good again. The poled out headsail arrangement did manage to give us the highest speed of the trip though - Jasper got 12.79 knots, sorry Beana, you aren’t the speed queen any more! Notables -Sleeping bags lost - 1. Its somewhere on this boat but no one had found Jeremy’s sleeping bag. Tanks

We have finally broken the 400nm to go barrier!! 384nm to be precise to the bottom of Grenada. We’ve had increased breeze for the past 24 hours or so so we’ve peeled the Hydey kite to the tougher Ullman kite and we are blasting along. The trip top speed record has fallen a number of times - first Neil got 11.87kts, Beana broke right back with 11.95knots, Jenn got an honorable mention with a sustained 11.9knots but actually in the right direction and now Beana got the lead further with 12.47knots! Now we need to decide when to gybe to head towards Grenada but avoid Barbados. We’ve recieved emails from our friends across the fleet who have finished already and have enjoyed hearing about some exciting spinnaker blow outs. Cannot wait to see everyone in Port St Louis for beers in a little over two days if we can maintain this progress! Get the

We currently have 747nm to go to the finish in Grenada and we are still under our superstar Hyde spinnaker in 16 -18 knots of wind with a pretty gentle sea state. Its super hot on board during the day so floppy hats are the order - mine is one I crocheted for myself in silly stripey colours so I thinkI win the daftest hat award. The night watches are very dark with no moon at all. Its ok when the night is clear because the stars provide plenty of light but last night was super cloudy and squally. We got totally soaked by a mean rain cloud and then did a complete 360 without tacking or gybing as the wind spun us around. This morning we have had two yachts on the horizon including a cruising catamaran who we saw in Arrecife before the race start. We spoke to them via the

Hello from EH01! We're making good progress in the light winds and during happy hour on Tuesday we had a party to celebrate being half way across. Jenn and Frank made some delicious lemon drizzle fairy cakes and we decorated silly hats for a crew photo. We've been able to sail directly to Grenada for a few days now, which everyone is excited about, it's great to watch the distance to waypoint tick down as we head in the right direction. Our manoeuvres are getting better every day, especially gybing the spinnaker which is definitely the most frequent even though Neil promised us no gybes! Outside the boat, we've seen lots of dolphins today, they swam alongside the boat for 6 hours this morning and some seabirds have also been flying around. There were some baby dolphins which were really cute to watch as they learnt to jump out of the water alongside

Its now Tuesday afternoon (I think), its super hot during the day and we have 1395 nm to run. Jenn is making cakes (actual cakes!!) to enjoy at our half way party. We have other half way treats and fun and Frank is working on the DJ playlist. Lunch is couscous, cheese and chorizo in wraps. We’ve just gybed back on to our course for Grenada which should make our vmg go up a bit. Your roving reporter has been chatting on our trainees today - So Jasper, what sailing had you done before joining our crew? J M-T ‘I was a dinghy sailing instructor in 2018/9 in the South of France for PGL and then Vounaki in Greece. After that I did my Day Skipper in Chatham and was working as a Keel boat instructor in 2021. I started on EH01 in August to extend my experience and mileage, heading towards Yachtmaster

The good ship EH01 checking in! We are currently about 1650nm from Grenada, about 125nm ahead of the girls in Purple Mist who are probably our closest boat in the fleet and are following our line it seems We’ve spent the last couple of days in 22 - 28 knots and pretty decent waves and swell so we are on a sensible but efficient poled out headsail and prevented out main set up. We’ve had up to 36 knots under clouds at night and a bit of rain. It does always seem to be watch ‘1’ that gets the rain for which I can only apologise - smugly, from the comfort of my cosy dry bunk. Last night ‘A’ watch got the first flying fish in the cockpit - it flew up, hit me (Prue) on the back, I squealed- it was quite a surprise - Jenn squealed becuase I squealed and

Louay asked for blogs so detailed that he could smell it so here goes! I’m sure all the other boats will send descriptions of big waves and surfing and, sure, we have done lots of that too but heres some highlights of the other side of on board life Number of rounds of 20 questions - usually 5 or 6 per night watch. Things to guess have included elephant poo, gravity, the sun and a ski pole. Number of sinks unblocked - 1 Times a melon has jumped out of the netting and landed in the locker under the oven - 2 (Don't ask. It took a while to find it) Bags of nuts eaten - 5 Number of sunset photos taken - too many to count Highest surf speed record - 11.8knots by Sam last night Number of waves sworn at in the night when they try to round you up - 1,000,000 Hours spent trying to