Blasting A Giant Horseshoe in the Atlantic

17:50 GMT
Lat 29°47’ North Long 15°17’ West
Heading 195°

Yesterday was full of big breeze and we made the best of it, blasting off in the high teens and reaching 20 knots on occasion.  The boat handled it well and I am very impressed with her - it was a good day.  And if our destination was Morocco, it would have been a great one!

We call this route 'the Atlantic horseshoe," and the first leg is basically straight South as we leave France and head past Madeira and the Canaries.  We will likely not be able to start our Westward turn another 1000 NM past there before this silly route ponies up with the trade winds. To put it in layman’s terms, our Transatlantic has really not begun yet.

The crew is all doing well, and with all the free time that this kind of delivery allows, we're exploring every nook and cranny on the new boat.  We have a daily meeting (quite a formal step considering the personalities aboard) with Kevin Hogan as the acting secretary.  We haven't yet pulled out Robert's Rules of Order, but we incorporate them during our meetings in a slapstick way - the laughs never end here aboard Team Lazarus.  Today's debate was about deck layout, while yesterday was all keel all the time.  It may sound silly, but all the brainstorming means we will be exceptionally prepared for the refit when we hit the ground in Charleston, and every second of thinking we can save now is a second we get back later.

At the moment we are headed towards Santa Cruz de Tenerife and we expect to get by it tonight, it's slow sailing now, and looks like it will stay slow for some time.  Quite a downer after our wild ride yesterday, but hopefully there are some more white knuckle moments to come soon.

Here is me snug as a bug during one of my few periods off deck!

Thanks for checking in with us,

-Brad