Miraculously, we got the boat ready in time and at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning we left Marina Lanzarote with the other participants in the Atlantic Odyssey to get ready to cross the start line at 12 o'clock.

The atmosphere was amazing, I was so excited, I waved and smiled to everybody, who was near by. I just could not believe, that we were about to cross The Atlantic.

We have been sailing for five days, and now its only just sunk in what we are actually doing! We have had a good start and thankfully none of us has been seasick, plus we have already caught a fish, and almost a participant in the Mini-Transat, who got to close to our fishing line.

We still have over 2500 miles to go, but we are in excellent spirits, even in spite of the delays and rushing around before our start.

So what's gone wrong already?
The first problem has already have occurred, our solar panel and towing generator are not charging our batteries, so we have to run the engine a couple of times every day.
The second problem is encouraging the engine to start!

Further more, for the last two days there has been no wind and since we only carry 120 litres of diesel, we can only use it for charging the batteries, so we creep our way forward and southish to get the trade winds.

The first two days we had lots of wind with gusts up to 40 knots. Capibara was sailing really well and a great speed and Henrik's mother via sat-phone told us we were amongst the leading boats! That really motivated us, so we pushed the boat to its limits and the other boats were within reach, then we reminded ourselves that we only are cruisers when a wave hit the boat and sent water into the cockpit and soaked us. So we had to sacrifice our warm, dry and clean clothes so early into the trip. Imagine if Capibara, one of the smallest boats in the Atlantic Odyssey which wasn't the last boat to cross the finish line!

Yesterday we lost our position in the leading half because of light winds. Today was even more frustrating, our sails were slapping in the wind, and the boat steers towards Africa or USA and not towards the fixed point on the chart plotter at 20ºN and 30ºV. Hopefully soon we will soon get some more wind, because it's really a long way to The Caribbean, when our maximum speed is 3 knots!

All photos and blog by Signe Dorothea Storr - Free lance Journalist & Atlantic sailor
Capibara Allegro 30