Scarlet Oyster - 100miles to go! Scarlet last day at sea (hopefully!)

Hi All,

A few milestones reached, one significant one for the superstitious was that
at 2343:13UT last night we were 13 seconds, 13 minutes, 13hrs, and 13 days
into my 13th Atlantic crossing, I elected to play things very safe around
that time! We had a big cloud approach us minutes before, but fortunately no
dire consequences!

As of 1000 today we were 100miles to go, we just need a bit more wind and a
bit of north in the wind and we can still beat the mighty Leopard, going to
be close, but so long as we give it our all, it does not matter to me if
they do prevail over us, we would be more than delighted with a fourth
consecutive class win, and as with all crossings, a safe rewarding one, is a
great outcome regardless of any race position.

It seems that the S played out well for the intrepid French team on Captain
Blind, our routing 2 days ago suggested the same route, but then the forcast
changed, to suggest a straight approach, unfortunately yesterday was not
ideal, with crazy amounts of rain, lightning and very unstable winds, we had
40knots of wind hit us out of nowhere with 180 degreees shift in under
20seconds, whilst barely able to see the bow in torrential rain, 10mins
later we had no wind again.

Last 20hrs have been kinder too us, and we will soon gybe to head to the
finish, our VMG will jump up as we finally point at our destination, right
now it seems there is more wind to the S and also a left shift still to come
so we are hanging on to our SW heading for a little longer, also this covers
captain Blind, it is likely to be close boat on boat to the finish with
them, just as it should be after such a close battle for so long.

The wind has finally clicked to the due E as I write, best head on deck for
our gybe towards the rum! Although the famous Mount Gay rum of Barbados is
only 20 miles away, we will hang on for the nearly as palatable Chairman's
Reserve of St Lucia 75mile further away!

Bye for now

Ross