Atlantic log: 17.6 knots

26/11 21°32´52"N 26°03´50"W

Wake up 18.00 by cooking and music, there is great activity on board. I manage to squeeze myself out of the bunk to get some food before I sleep on for the night shift. Up on deck, I understand that Jonathan has just broken a new speed record of 17.6 knots. We tested the gennaker for the first time today and it has worked without any major complications. It will be a bumpy walk to the kitchen for my newly awakened legs. Here is a delicious fish soup with rice, Magnus's wife's recipe. I grab a plate and climb up to the sofa, bracing my legs and tilting the plate so the contents don't spill out. Herlog and Jonathan drop their porcelain plates on the floor and have to lie down on the floor and clean, we all have something to look at while we eat. More plates are prepared and sent up on deck for those on watch.

There is something very funny about doing something as normal as having a nice dinner around a table on a Thursday night while doing something as extreme as sailing across the Atlantic. I go back to bed and try to fall asleep with the water gurgling on the other side of the hull, a constant reminder that we are heading, and fast, towards the Caribbean.

We see that we have one of the highest average target speeds in the fleet, 8.8 knots. We have climbed from sixteenth to ninth place in the last 24 hours! We are sailing further to the northwest, up against the pack, to maintain the good wind conditions that we currently have.

Mathias