Good evening all!!

It’s about the equivalent of 11 pm here. The weather continues to be grey, dark, damp and rainy….typical North Atlantic conditions!! Mark’s up driving… back and forth with the waves and wind. I’ve been tending to much needed regular maintenance onboard. We switch off every hour or so and I give him a break. Everything below and above is wet. We probably evacuate about 15 gallons of water every shift. The constant flow of waves over the deck run off the stern, some of which then makes its way through a compromised gasket on the stern hatch. The routine at the end of my watch is to switch crew, then I climb back there, scoop water into a bucket and then it’s pumped by one of the others on deck out the boat. About 4 buckets a watch – messy, clumsy and unfortunate work. We’ve had a number of other compromises as well, but are making the best of these situations. We continue to push the boat and ourselves toward France – hoping to gain position in the standings too. Ireland’s off our port bow about 100 miles and St. Malo about 400. We’re hoping the wind continues with us to the finish and some much needed sanitizing!!! A day of sunshine and nice winds would be a real change of pace. We’ve been stuck with the low pressure system for 7 or so days…which has made for a fast passage, but a change of pace would be nice.

Hope to be in France in a few days!!

– Dave