The last 24 hours have been great for the Maltese Falcon! We have covered 382nm with an average speed of almost 16 knots, occasionally seeing over 20 knots of boatspeed. Seas have been bumpy but easily manageable for a yacht of our size. During this time we have been able to catch up with and pass much of the competition, simply because these seas don't slow us down by very much while other yachts are forced to throttle back a bit. We aren't counting our chickens yet, but we have managed to steal the crown from Phaedo at least for the moment. On the other hand, Rambler is now well ahead of us despite the fact that they started 4 days after us, but nobody is too surprised about that!
Despite our great speeds, we are still looking to approach British Soldier's recorded boatspeed of 283 kts that we saw on the tracker the other day...perhaps those guys brought some of the military's jets to help push the boat along!?
As we navigate from within a fully enclosed bridge, foul weather gear is a rare sight on board. However, today we needed to go forward to take care of a few minor issues so we were forced to leave our dry wonderland and brave the elements up on the bow. So, although it was very short, we had the opportunity to briefly experience what everyday life is like on most of the other boats in the fleet.
We now have only 811nm to go before we cross the finish line. England, see you soon!
Jeremy Smith
Deckhand
