We will be adding “set course record for the Caribbean 600 race” to our sailing CVs. Nobody needs to know that it’s for the longest elapsed time ever.

To zero knots: so long, and thanks for all the fish. Or, at least, we wish. We tried the fishing gear, but as it turns out, you actually need to be moving to trawl.

Power consumption has become a major concern. The main sail impacts the effectiveness of our solar panels, and therefore our ability to continue powering the two most important instruments onboard: Starlink and the fridge. So, we are considering bringing the main sail down. In the meantime, the crew are occupying themselves with a spot of backgammon.

We are no longer sinking! It feels odd to be skipping our regular gym session (aka manually pumping out the bilge every 20 minutes). But you can’t please everyone. “Not sinking takes the magic out of it” ~ Ben

Lieneke got an electric shock from the fridge, which alerted us to the fact that the bilges were uncomfortably full. We turned off the fridge (that bodes well for the remaining 4 days of food…), emptied the bilges, and upped the bilge check to every hour. We have since realised that even an hourly pump out is insufficient, so we are now manually pumping out the engine bilge every 20 minutes.

The pre-start of the Caribbean 600 race was incredible. More precisely, for us, it was incredibly stressful as we discovered the prop shaft was leaking and the engine bilge was full… safe to say that impacted our pre-start tactics!