It has been a long 24 hours of batteling with very little wind. Yesterday afternoon after a few knots of wind filled in we hoisted the A2 made a few gybes and finally passed Black Rock. Once we passed Black Rock we sailed into another hole, where we dropped the A2 and hoisted the solent. Nick and Markus tried to hoist the A2 and get the boat moving but dropped it before we tore the kite. There was very litle wind to speak of.

Finally at about 20h00 last night we saw a sail in the distance behind us, it was Edingburgh… The Clipper Boat. Phillippa and Markus were on watch at 22h00 and battled for hours to try to get the boat to move but they had very little luck, until they managed to find a little gust of 3 knots. Phillippa continued to keep up the momentum and Peter came on watch. Around midnight we had 3.5 knots and sailing south again down the Irish coast.The wind increased steadily and we managed to do over 20 miles. The dolphins came to play under the golden moon light for a short while.

The wind died as we caught up to John B and Hull and Humber. The 3 boats sat in a another hole while the wind switched to South West and back to South East.

Around sunrise the wind finally filled in from the south east and all three boats are making good time down the Irish coast.

Wildlife has been interesting and varied these 24 hours.  Yesterday evenin a seal surfaced near the boat and this morning we saw a turtle.  It was the first time any of us have seen a turtle in these waters and it would be interesting to hear if anybody has information about turtle spotting around Britain and Ireland.  The light was not good at the time but it looked a lot like a Leatherback turtle?  Dolphins and Gannets have literally accompanied us in the hundreds and we have recently seen a couple of large groups of Puffins.  we were surprised that we had not seen more of these funny birds further north, as they were really common last time we sailed around Britain and Ireland.

As I sign off the wind is dropping again and once again we are dumping the water ballast in order to keep the boat moving.