Diary of a world record

Saturday 26th May
We arrive in Horta at around 10.30am. Not overly brilliant weather, but it's nice to get onto land once again, although it does feel slightly weird after being at sea for 150 or so hours apart from the two and a half in St John's.

        Once we clear the formalities with the harbour master and customs people, we wander up to the famous Peter's Sport Cafe for a coffee. Horta is the traditional stopover for transatlantic yachtsmen, and the place is heaving with so many, all sheltering from the bad weather.

Sunday 27th May
Jan and I head off to the supermarket to get the provisions in. By the time we're back at the marina, Alan and Steve have refuelled the boat. The weather is much improved, and were it not for the fact that we've been warned of strong northerlies in two or three days time, we might have been tempted to go for the Gibraltar record. We almost certainly would have been able to do it, but then we'd also almost certainly get delayed on our return to Cardiff. We mustn't keep the mayor waiting! So we've set a course straight for Lizard Point, over 1200 miles away.

Heavily laden in Horta

The boat is down on the tubes in the water, laden with a massive weight of fuel, and just to make life interesting, Alan has decided not to use the fuel additive which impressively has made our fuel consumption 8% more efficient on the previous two legs. It's a sort of control experiment, but we could be cutting it fine.

        We set off at around 1pm from Horta. It's a light following sea, and the sun's out. Great!

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