Hello from Algimouss Spirit of Canada,

Today is Day 6 of the delivery of the boat from Hobart and we find ourselves in 40kts of wind, upwind of course. These boats really don’t like these conditions and neither do the skippers. The bashing and crashing is hard on the nerves and makes any sort of rest impossible.

The first night proved challenging when the autopilots would not drive the boat under true wind setting so it was difficult to get any rest or to work on the other systems on the boat. The autopilots have still not been resolved after 6 days at sea and we are now without wind instruments so the decision has been made to make a stop, this time in New Zealand to try once and for all to sort the electronics out before setting off again. Alone in the southern ocean is not a place to be when the boat is not completely sorted, the conditions here are unforgiving and these boats are so finely tuned that if you leave yourself exposed for any length of time something will break.

More news soon. Take care,

Derek