175 miles in first day of Route du Rhum qualifier on UniCredit

I left Haslar marina 24 hours ago and covered approximately 175 miles of
my qualifier, which isnt bad considering the light winds last night and
the fact that i have been beating since Portland or so...

The way out of the English Channel is typically the slow one but if the
forecast wind from the South West will fill later this week i could be
in for a very fast ride home.

The Thompson holidays picture perfect conditions of earlier have now
turned into a rather bumpy beat, i had to change down from big Solent to
the small Staysail and i put in a reef... occasionally we lose rithm
with the waves and crash loudly falling off the small wavelets the are
starting to build, it can get quite uncomfortable.

This trip is an interesting one for me, apart from being my RdR
qualifier it distinctively reminds me of the last time i went out solo
for a 1000 miles into the North Atlantic, it was training back then,
ahead of the OSTAR 2009... i set off towards the end of july 2008
aiming for 50N 20W... the idea was to do exactly what i'm doing now,
spending 5 or 6 days at sea to prove man and machine were ready for an
atlantic crossing. That trip was a success in some sense as i learnt how
to take care of myself on the first few days of a race, which are the
hardest, however i did end up dismasting 200 miles south west of
ireland, not due to a storm but to lower shroud toggle failing... i had
to cut everything and lose the mast in the deep ocean then motor to
dingle in ireland, it took me 42 hours and from there another 60 to
reach Falmouth...

Hopefully this time i can still learn a lot about me and the boat
without a dimasting!

I'm currently in 49 34N 005 02W which is about 25 miles south of lizard
point... the wind has eased a little as i wrote this so i'll have to
decide what to do next.

Ciao,

Marco