Jamaica to New York

We departed from Jamaica in glorius sunshine but very little wind. After
the usual media pictures in the bay and some refresher training for our new
leggers - Nigel, Martin, Anna and Rick ( the new 1st mate) it was back to
the business of serious racing.
We had our usual great start turning 1st around the mark in the bay before
we headed out towards New York approx 1400 NM away.
Conditions on board have been hot and humid and as usual life below decks
has been very uncomfortable. The sun has been shining as we pick our way
through the Bahamas Islands, very tempting to stop off and have a swim on
some of the deserted ones - Acklins Island looked particulary good.
Now into Day 4 and we have had our usual slip down the leader board due to
yet another wind hole that left us becalmed for about 12 hrs before a heavy
squall picked up the boat and fired us forward like a cork that has
been released from a champagne bottle. Unforunately the damage to our
position had already been done and we found ourselves in a disappointing 7th
position. This was a case for not leading into the Islands, those boats that
were 30 odd miles behind us could see that we (and Australia) were not going
anywhere fast and chose to go further east.Although this route added more
miles on to their passage, they managed to pick up consistant winds
which put them 100 miles ahead whilst we bobbed around for hours on end. I'm
sure that if we were in a similar position we would have done exactly the
same. We have been in this postion before and it only needs the leading bunch
to hit a similar weather system and we will start to reel them back in.
Day 7
We now have approx 390 miles to go and the leaders have not found any wind
holes, therefore it is likely that we will stay in this very disappointing
7th position, the leaders are too far ahead and we are now looking forward to
getting to New York where we can regroup and get ready for the next race to
Nova Scotia. We have to be in NY on the 2nd because there are various
corporate sails that we have to provide to Clippers corporate partners, I
think we are scheduled to do 3 or 4 over the course of our stay there. So not
alot of downtime before we head off to Canada.
The results from this race will mean that there is a real dog fight for the
overall 2nd and 3rd positions, we think Cape Breton will leap frog over both
ourselves and Jamaica to claim 2nd position with us dropping back to 3rd
overall.
Weather hot and sunny and we have seen more wildlife, dolphins and sharks and
masses of jelly fish.
All well on Team Finland, frustrated yet again but we carry on sailing and
smiling.