Jack Rowland Smith - Log Day One - JACK Rowland Smith on a Mission

We are off.

Our final dinner ashore was a nice steak and a bottle of red wine and then reasonably early to bed.

The send off from Las Palmas was every bit what I have seen in the videos with all boats patiently waiting to get out through the narrow entrance with bands playing and locals/relatives waving flags and cheering.

We were 30 seconds to one minute late for the start but better that way than incur a 3 hour penalty for being over. We then had a fantastic run down the Gran Canaria coast hitting over 10 knots at times as we surfed our very laden 25 tonne cruiser.

Position reports were being text until early evening which saw us up to 20th overall at one point on the water, all somewhat irrelevant to us with nearly 3,000 Miles to go but made us feel good.

Chicken and vegetables for dinner after a beautiful sun set and that followed by an equally beautiful moon rise, between which a display of stars you only see at sea.

We had got the spinnaker down well before nightfall when true wind speeds were nearing 20 knots, we decided discretion was the better part of valour.

We sailed until 2.30am when the wind shut off completely so the engine came on which was needed anyway to charge the batteries.

I am currently on watch and it has just turned 5.00am (we are still on UK time) and it looks like we could have a longer motor than we expected and we fear we are a little too far west to pick up the breeze closer to the shore.

It is amazing how quickly you lose touch with 180 boats and we only have AIS readings for one who is running alongside us at the moment. We expect by the end of day 2 we will be on our own.

So all in all a good first few hours and I expect a nice sun rise in about one hour.

Nick (Chief Tactician and General Pain)