I was tucked in on the quarter pipe cot (not comfortable but useful

place for my mass!) when I awoke to a big rush of water and screams of

joy on the deck as Andreas pushed the boat over 18 knots of boat

speed. This boat really likes the power reaching with its heavy chine

and its so beautifully setup for easy helming and trimming at speed.

Mark was the inaugural member of the 18 knot club but Andreas beat him

with 18.61. We must note though, Rob frequently comments that it's

the Average boat speed that is important, not the peaks (something

relating to his lovelife???)

So enthusiasm to get on deck to experience this was pumping. After a

quick serve of breakfast on we went. Aladin had us well organised for

grinding, trimming and keeping the boat speed up and we moved to 6 on

deck at a time to manage all the jobs. After a few hours I got my

hands on the wheel. This boat feels so light on the helm with it's

twin, large rudders and extremely controllable as the working crew are

right there on the quarter with you making communication really easy.

The raised primary winch was allowing Jens to utilise his months of

circuit training keeping the sheet on coming in on second gear.

After getting a little warmed up (especially those grinding), one of

those perfect waves came along and I pushed the bow down with a half

turn of the wheel and watched the boat accelerate. We wound on, push

the boat through the wave in front and surfed along it reaching a high

of 18.88 knots (on course too Rob!). Andreas moaned from his bunk but

we didn't care. That moment when James, Aladin, Scarlett, Alice, Jens

and I got this trip record won't be forgotten... its why we came all

the way out to the North Atlantic. For info: TWS22, AWA 90, Polar

105%! A5, J3 & full main.

There's another squad on deck now pushing to create the 19, or 20 knot

club.... not sure the record will last long! Griff is pushing as hard

a possible to get back on top holding 16knots on every wave and 13.5kt

average over the last 30 mins.

ETA is now Mid day 11th on the lastest forecast.... we might just make

it so Giles can do the St Malo race (with a fresh crew).

Chris Hanson on Pata Negra (grinning a lot today!)

42 42.428N 041 13.755W

Beautiful sailing today average +9kts. Spotted sailing drone at a bearing of 135 degrees M at range of 150 yards. Bright International Orange. First time to see one in the wild. Kite up and anticipate flying it all night.

Hiro Maru out.

We saw 2 whales crossing very close by The Kid yesterday , approx 15 meters from the sterm .

What a beautifull moment, and how lucky we have been !.

The french species name is ' cachalot ' , I am not sure of what it is in english .

They were so close together , just changing their way a little bit to avoid the boat .

Round nose , nice little spray , beautyfull long body from a deep grey color .

This moment was unique and all the crew will remember it only as nobody had the time to pick up a cellphone to engrave it in a file .

It will be in our personnal moment thus ..

Team The KID and captain JP

Ahoi! Just these days I was thinking on my friends up in Cheyenne where the big Rodeo is coming up in July. The same is what we are doing since two days here on the Atlantic. We got caught by huge low pressure system and have been sailing ahead of the warm front in plenty of wind.

The good thing in this situation is we make great progress the not so good thing is life gets hard downstairs as we have to keep all hatches shut. And during each and every changes of the watches we get a lot of more moisture inside. But by now we see the front have passed over us and enter the region behind with stabile wind conditions, less waves and dry weather.

This in sight the mood of the crew improves although I have to omit it was never bad during the last days. So cheers to you all and kisses to my daughter ( and my wife :-)),

Karl on behalf of Charisma Crew

Currently just approaching the last of the Ice Markers... we've been

having a right laugh (in our shorts and teeshirts) about the wall of

ice, just 8 miles to Port and what would happen if we actually ran

into it. (Note-race committee - we're just jesting!)

Last 48 hours have been lots of sunshine, Starboard kite / A0 reach in

15knots of wind. Pata Negra loves this with its hard chine and wide

transom and we've had speeds upto to 16.5 knots (by Scarlett). Sea is

incredibly flat considering the currents and we're in the middle of

the atlantic.

Andy's been working extremely hard again after the holding tank to the

Starboard heads blocked. Sorting this out was a huge task and an

extremely messy / smelly one. He's bullet proof though and worked his

way through it (getting a full fresh water shower at the end). He gave

himself a full covering of alcoholic hand sanitiser just to make sure

too! We're in good shape now till the end of the race we hope.

On the weather situation, things are difficult. The high pressure

building ahead means the second half of this race is going to be VERY

SLOW! Simulations show we expect to finish between Thursday and

Saturday (13th July). This is does mean that Giles (who owns the

boat) can't also do the RORC St Malo race on the 12th of July, some of

the pro crew are missing their next ride / delivery and Rob & Mark may

not make the airport to get back to Australia. On the other hand,

the simulations also so a massive depression forming in the middle of

the atlantic late next week which means the slower boats will catch us

up (though it looks rough for them). Depressions are difficult to

forecast though this far out and it may change dramatically...

hopefully giving us some wind up the english channel!

After all the work this morning, the others covered my watch whilst I

caught up on some sleep. Jens (who shares my watch) has been a

brilliant buddy throughout the last week. I'm often below getting the

meals ready so others cover and Jens is alway there ready to help.

He's from Finland where his love of sailing means he frequently sails

alone around the Baltic and has dreams one day of single handed non

stop circumnavigation. Certainly got the strength of character for

such a challenge.

So we press on trying to catch / keep up with Teasing Machine & The

Kid ahead of us. In 40 miles though, good bye Ice Markers - Hello

North Atlantic Ocean.

Chris on Pata Negra (not so smelly pig now)

39 41'N 049 51'W

11 kts SOG 9.6 kts BSP Winds at 17kts and building. Low pressure arriving slower than predicted. Boat is moving very nicely, 1 Reef in Main and flying Jib Top. Tonight's dinner and tomorrow's dinner currently being prepared. Second reef going in now.

Hiro Maru out.

39 41'N 049 51'W

+10 kts SOG +9kts BSP Winds at 17kts and building
Low pressure arriving slower than predicted.
Boat is moving very nicely, Reefed main with Jib Top.
Tonight's dinner and tomorrow's dinner currently being prepared.

Hiro Maru out

Wizard Update

Time 1020 UTC. 49 24N 022 01W Speed 19.2 knots Course 075 magnetic. True Wind Speed: 16 knots.

810nm to the finish and approaching the high pressure ridge. Wind speed is dropping,the sky is clearing and the barometer is rising. The sleigh ride is coming to an end and now its back to tactical sailing.

The trick is to get into the high enough to use the shape to get a nice lift on the exit, while keeping enough wind speed to keep moving. Sometimes it feels a bit like Icarus making sure we don't fly too close to the sun (read High).

We don't know where our closest competitor Scallywag is (and presumably neither do you, the reader). Their tracker has not worked since 2300utc last night. After about two hours I got worried for them and tried calling their sat phone: no answer! Shit! I then began composing an email to try to establish that they were OK. Luckily I got a call back from Miles (Navigator) on Scallywag who indicated they were fine. Phew! That nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach subsided. I've been involved in enough "dramas" at sea and did not need another one.

Luckily, the sailing instructions state that "If a transponder fails, the Organising Authority will attempt to establish a communication plan with that yacht." Hopefully we can all continue to watch the interesting race between the 70' Wizard and the 100' Scallywag play out, with regular updates of their position, as we race towards the Lizard, then Cowes.

Cheers,

Will

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Friday 2pm UTC and all's good on Pata Negra. The music is playing on

the aft deck (we've concluded that Aussies have a strange taste in

music) - the boat is drying out and sleep is all topped up.

Last 36 hrs have been pretty tough with 20-25kts from the SE meaning

we've been hard on the wind is a very very choppy sea state. We've

moved into the full Gulf stream which flows in a meandering fashion

through these waters. It's been warm, as the stream flows 28 deg

temp, but with a flow rate of up to 5 knots, it makes the sea

extremely rough. Pata Negra, with it's wide bottom and heavy chine

generally doesn't like that as falls off the wave with a huge bang.

Waves over the deck mean there is little air below deck and everything

/ everyone is wet through. However - its warm!

Now a bit for the sailors: We've been pretty fortunate that we've

been largely above and in front of forming depressions which means the

wind has been steady from the SE and we've largely sailed the rhum

line. As we got into the streams the water temp quickly rose from 18

to 28deg C and we got on a nice flow for the last 36 hrs. So although

we've been managing about 8.5 to 9 knots boat speed we've been flushed

along at 12 knots over the ground. We've just popped out of a flow

and hope to pick up another one soon. We might say it's skill, but

we've had some luck that we're not so fast to run into the high

pressure ahead which is why you may have seen the other boats take

radical action to avoid running out of wind. So far, this has worked

well and put us (physically) ahead of some of the key competition.

700 miles on a stbd tack close hauled.... definitely something to

remember!

Routing so far showing a Wednesday 10th finish, so looks like no

records (and a few excuses for being late back to work).

Last night we saw some ships and cruising yacht - quite unusual

considering the vastness of this place. Also Andy was busy repairing

bits of the boat which did give a fab firework display as he formed a

fix with the angle grinder. Sparks everywhere in the dark night! You

have to be creative... you can't carry spares for everything and you

have to make things work.

Aladin, Alice, Scarlett & Andreas are the younger end of the crew but

definitely not short of talent. Scarlett's driving consistently above

100% on polar performance and Aladin's all round skills from living on

a boat since the age of 8 show through. It feels we've 9 drivers and

a navigator on board, which dramatically helps keep the focus through

the night hours. Andreas in the same way tackles every action with

ease demonstrating years of sailing experience on the advanced race

circuits. An amazing amount of experience and capability that will

no doubt help their sailing careers in the future.

Might not be an update tomorrow. Forecast is 25knts on the nose again - oh joy!

--

Chris Hanson

Pata Negra

Please do not reply to the mail

Saturday 11am - all is good after another very wet night. Lightening,

Thunder and rain like it want to fill the atlantic (!?) through most

of the night. Just before sunset we spotted Teasing Machine on our

stern and they came past us through the night about 400m away. Very

creepy being all the way out here and seeing a competitor. Shame we

couldn't wave! :)

Weather is taking some interesting turns. At one point last night it

was 30Kts on the nose and now we are desperately trying to escape the

centre of the forming low pressure as it moves slowly East. The

challenge with going north now is the ice exclusion zone as we don't

have a huge amount of space. Currently just put up the first kite of

the race... makes a change, but every other upwind sail has been used.

Andy did an amazing job yesterday and fully fixed the forward heads.

Now that's a job that no one wants, even in harbour, but the

workmanship is impressive. New supporting boards, were cut, new pump,

new bolts, even suggestions to improve the design and stop it

happening again.

Aladin has been up all night (skipping his off watch) and keeping the

focus. He joined the boat in Antigua but very quickly got to know it.

At the age of 22 with about 110,000 sea miles to name and has

extensive experience way beyond his years. The younger guys all vary

from 20,000 to 60,000 miles - Alice for example is only 22 but has

already done 6 atlantic crossings including a Capetown to the UK.

Later today: Just as I was preparing this text above - the grey clouds

rolled in from the North and in seconds it was Kite down and back on

the wind. We also then found the leech had splilt on the J2 which as

been painstakingly patched up over the last 4 hours by Mark, Rob and

Alice. Hopefully their stitching holds as we'll no doubt need it if

the wind easies.

So we're back on the wind, but somehow gaining Teasing Machine? We

think they may have fallen out of the current... hopefully its too

late if they are reading this.

Now to make some lunch for the crew - if anyone prays please can we

have a South Westerly 25 kts????

Hi All,

Day 4 in the Transat Race on the mighty Wizard: 1000nm down with 2089nm left to the finish.

The Gulfstream played a big role for the first few days as we hooked into a nice warm eddy and managed to get up to 3.4 knots of assistance. The other benefit of the warm water is that the wind is well mixed (ie solid), whereas in the cold water north of the stream, the wind is poorly mixed and you never seem to get the breeze forecasted by the GRIB files. For these few days, we had ideal Volvo 70 weather and managed some good miles. However a large high pressure system in the Eastern Atlantic is blocking and slowing the normal west to east movement of the pressure systems. We were forced to sail a zig-zag course as we sailed over the top of a slow moving small High, while those behind us, like Ageir, have been able to sail straight as they are sitting behind the system.

We had a small hiccup last night as we sailed through a large cloud line (my bad) and ended up getting stuck for a while, when the clouds unloaded in the early hours of the morning. We managed to extricate ourselves after a few hours and normal progress was resumed.

As I write this we are just passing the SE tip of the Point Alpha Ice box and have a clear run at the Lizard Gate (a line we have to pass through on the SW end of the UK which is the traditional finish of transatlantic races gone by) some 1927nm away. Looks like some great sailing for the next three days as we head NE in good running reaching conditions. We then have to figure out how to tackle the large High pressure blocking our way into the English Channel.

A rather large 100 footer has just popped up on the AIS doing 3 knots faster than us in our rear view mirror. It has been great to beat them to Point Alpha but waterline length has finally caught up to us. In a 10 day race Scallywag owes us around 44 hours so we are fine on handicap with them so far!

Breeze is heading and slowly building and there are some showers heading our way. Interesting times and great to have some competition around.

Cheers for now.

Will.

After pushing North to get in more current yesterday against the wind, we eventually cracked sheets and reached off towards the southern ice gate point. The sky cleared and with no moon, the full glory of the Milky Way galaxy showed through. There are sooooo many starts it even looks like a glowing cloud when you see it offshore. As we're coming to the end of the Gulf stream currents, the water temperature is steadily dropping and back to mid layers on deck.

By the time I got up, the kite was up, the sea flat, sun shining and a few hours of boat maintenance was underway. Andy did a full rig inspection and we needed to fix the chaff cover on the main halard, Aladin fixed the Jib tack and those with the skills were making a stack of soft shackles (the younger ones!).

Plan currently is to get around this imaginary mark deep in the ocean and then head North to avoid an ever growing Azores High pressure. Our friends ahead seems to already have good breeze and we so want this. What's positive is the majority of the course ahead looks off the wind which will be good for our "sensitive" J2 and the general dynamics of this boat as it really likes it off the wind. It also means it will be much more comfortable below deck.

With the nasty sea state last night and the fridge door giving me a small flesh wound, we had Freeze Dried food last night.... Some love these meals, some don't, but they are amazing when conditions are not good. You serve directly from the bag, so apart from a few spoons, there is no washing up either. They also make a hot water bottle if you're cold whilst they rehydrate.

We're just about to have hot dog rolls with freshly cooked onions for lunch by Alice...Then tonight will be Lamb shank. Totally spoiled!

There is a "Lazy Bones" bean bag on board which is made by Scarlett's dad's business in Antigua. Its by far the most comfortable thing I've ever slept on and its made from recycled polystrene collected around the island and shreaded with a garden shreader... good for absolutely everyone! I wondered why many have been fighting over the berth with it in for the last few nights. I'm sold if he ever expands internationally!

Chris on Pata Negra (covered in sea salt and chilled overnight!)

Last 24 hour were tough to fab... We were caught between the two weather systems in extremely light winds most of yesterday which did mean that Andy (with some helpers) fully wiped down the bilges of the boat whilst we gently sailed along at 5 knots in 7 knots of wind. The sea flattened except for the strong gulf stream currents that gave us quite a push along towards A3 (the southern most imaginary "Ice Mark" we had to sail south around). He ended up working a chunk of the night last

An excellent sunset, more Milky Way on the moonless night and then a stunning sunrise. The wind was very light all night but today it's been building from the south to currently 19kts allowing for excellent sailing conditions with the Code 0 at between 11 to 14 knots We've just gone around the "mark". Seems weird pushing yourself to windward, without anything in sight, to go around a mark that isn't physically there. Truely demonstrates the honesty of yacht racing.

Rob and Mark from Australia took us around this corner. Think Mark is getting used to depressions going around the other way, a different set of stars and a different set of boat terminology.. Rob is a Pom though. They sail together in Sydney where they work in the legal industry resolving late running construction projects. Not quite sure what their penalties are going to be if this project doesn't finish on time! So now crusing along 300 miles to the next icemark at 12 - 14knts boat speed.

We're pushing quite a bit of current of 3 knots. Something you expect in the Solent, not in the middle of the atlantic. Earlier today Andy & I did a full food audit. This is because there looks to be a high pressure system buiding from the Azores to the UK which will be a windless brick wall in our journey. Getting through this looks very challenging and out ETA could go out an extremely long way. A week is a long time in a forecast but it is very concerning. We're OK on water... just might be a bit thinner...(who's moaning!)

Just off to cook lunch though. A crew sails on it's stomach! Attached photos show how sunny it has been. We've been mobbed by hundreds of dophins and the odd whale... They don't seem as energitic as those in the UK... must be the relaxed pace of life they enjoy 1,000 miles away from land.

Chris on Pata Negra