After a very slow and frustrating first week, we wanted to be amongst the most southerly of the fleet, and that is where we found ourselves. The plan being to keep going south until we picked up the trade winds which would then propel us westwards. They were slow coming but after a week we were well on our way and working our way through the fleet. Our goal was to be the first Oyster across the finish line in St Lucia.
The trip wasn’t without issues. We had a problem with the autopilot when it got wet and stopped working. I was having flashbacks to my around the world record attempt on Pixel Flyer. We managed to get a workaround for it and continued on our way.
At the half way mark we decided to celebrate and have a proper naming ceremony for the boat, with Champagne of course. This boat is so different from the out and out racer Pixel Flyer, with fridges and freezers, air conditioning and an ice maker!
Nick and James were loving the competition with the other boats and every 6 hours we would be checking the tracker website to see how we were doing against the other boats. Dot watching was getting pretty addictive!