Timshel - Cape Verde to St Lucia Day 14

Wind getting lighter all afternoon - oh dear hope it is not going to desert us at this stage? At the evening SSB schedule Moonshine reported amazing heavy rain for 1 hour plus but little wind boxing the compass whereas Vitamina had 25 knots. Unfortunately later on we got Moonshine's weather - is this the doldrums with heavy rain and no wind from all over the shop? Crashed about for a bit, I swear a calm such as this combined with the swell is harder on the rig (and the people) than 30 knot squalls. Eventually got Timshel moving but best that could be managed was SW. So wet that oilskins over bikini seemed logical dress. Passed 200 miles to go, 175 miles to go, 150 miles to go - amazing what excuses one can produce for having a square of chocolate on a wet night! Gybed again in the morning(must be getting better at this?) and slowly got a decent wind - and actually heading for St Lucia! Got the daily position reports, I see Vitamina snuck past in the middle of the night. I think this is our problem - we start off looking quite good against the rest of the fleet, but as the required course is dead downwind, our inability to steer that as we have the main up and are on self steering means that we increasingly fall behind as everyone homes in the finish and we are zigzagging back and forth. We did mean to set up a twin headsail system, must get this sorted for the next tradewind passage. Getting increasingly excited about arriving in St Lucia, but maybe a little sad that the passage is coming to the end. Looking forward to the RUM!!