Last Sunday it was time to leave Cape Town. We started with a parade down to the boats which was lead by an African dance group. Once on board our boat we had the obligatory crew picture taken before slipping lines. Already in the entry to the harbour we were reminded of the warning words which were addressed to us the day before during the crew briefing. The wind blew with gusts around 30 knots of wind speed. As a result the parade of the boats was done without hoisting any sails.

The start line was set off Green Point light house. Shortly after crossing the line we got into the wind shadow of Table Mountain. It was a very exhausting stretch and unfortunately it lead to a first spreading of the fleet. Unfortunately because we were again in the second half of the fleet even though we had managed to cross the line not in last position. After crossing the traffic separation scheme off Cape Town the wind started to increase. Respecting the weather forecast we had already hanked on smaller head sails, so we only had to put in reefs in the main sail. Initially, we went to reef 1 only. After the sunset the wind then increased further reaching over 30 knots. So we hove to in order to put in the second reef. The boat trailing us, Scotland, used the opportunity to overtake us with only a few metres between us. Once the reef was secured and we were back on course we tried to make up their lead. And we did so successfully: only an hour or so later we were able to claim back our position in front of them.

The remainder of the night passed without anything happening. We tried to use the wind which blew with over 40 knots at times to get as far south as possible. The forecast showed a high pressure system extending on our route which would deprive us of any wind. And that is what happened. After 24 hours where some on board were struggling with seasickness we were experiencing winds of only two to three knots. Part of the fleet had managed to get further south so that they enjoyed the wind filling in a but earlier. Scotland had used the wind to tack east before it died. Both decisions turned out to be better than ours. As the wind picked up again we were heading right into an ocean current. This cost us dearly in terms of boat speed for the next day and had the distance to the leaders increase to around 100 nautical miles. At least most on board are doing much better now so that hopefully we can attack in the days to come and try to close in on the leaders.