SPEEDBOAT IS ON HER WAY - DAY ONE

After much deliberation  over the weather and a pretty frenzied preparation due to the such short turn around from the boat having returned from Bermuda,  at 21-19 on a pleasant New York Sunday evening, twenty one of us aboard SPEEDBOAT  roared past Ambrose light at 23 knots with full main fractional Jib-top and a staysail on. We are off!!

Really the only mark of the course that is in the way of you sailing great circle from New York to the Lizard is the shoals off Nantucket, so to get out there we have a fast reach at 110 true wind angle before we can escape the shallows and set a gennaker for what we hope to be a quick ride north to Newfoundland.

 The Trans Atlantic record is a toughie, we have left on a forecast that has great potential for the first four days, and from there many moons will have to align to get us through to the finish off Lands end in less then the six days 17 hours that it took Robert Miller's Mari-Cha IV in 2003.  There are a few of us here aboard Speedboat that where there in 2003 and so we are well aware how well that trip went and that the average speed through the water of 19.8 knots that she did is quick and we will certainly need a few dice to roll our way to better that time.

 We do however have quite the machine under us here, and with Stan in here with Alex and I in the Nav Station and Ken Campbell and the guys at Commanders helping to guide us through the tricky bits, if it can be done then I have a huge belief that we have both the hardware ( the boat) and the software..( that's us) to do it.

Thanks for checking in on us, we will be updating the position report and record status every six hours as well as get you some snippets of News as well as the odd picture as it all happens aboard.

Talk soon

Kind regards

Mike Sanderson