The start of our voyage was pretty quiet. The right time for the new crew to get adapted to the ocean – the wind was around 16 kts and speed of 7 kts. Despite the fact that the start of the race was favorable, most of the crew still lives on water and ship’s biscuits. Around 3:00 at night, when barometer had fallen 3mb’s an hour, we caught the “tail” of the cyclone together with a local thunderstorm and gusts up to 52kts, rain and thunder. Lightning hit us so closely that Andris, as a photographer admitted he had never seen so perfectly illuminated night.

Received the message from Race control - 25/05 14:00 UTC Finish at sea. It looks like the last secret weapon of our captain - his special red socks - will be no help this time!

This morning's calculations show that it is exactly 9 days since we crossed the start line and wehave managed to complete 1624 NM. That means average 180 miles a day and 7,5 knots of average speed which is not bad at all!