The first manoeuvres have been taken place today: three tacks! Getting closer to the coast of Malaysia/Brunei, it gave us the impression that near the shore the conditions were less favourable. On one side, the shallows didn't look friendly and we expected the wind to be less and more NE along the shore.

We tacked in a dark, squally night and moved towards more offshore regions. We had to tack twice more to manoeuvre into a safe position - referring to the many shallow places around here - and into a stronger breeze. At this moment, we are experiencing some decreasing wind speeds, but still more than 10 knots. Our wind will arrive shortly... Even more in a couple of days.

Being new onboard such a racer, I'm trying to get into the rhythm of the daily routines. Having said that, with the parts that don't work properly in the nav-station and a limping satellite system (not our fault) I have to work with, I spend a lot of time in the nav station.

In between every three-hour report, I try to ‘sleep’ - what a NOISY boats these are - and eat and drink sufficiently. Food is not gourmet, but all right. Unfortunately a series of rotten freeze-dried food was packed, so we have to be careful with our choices and rations.

For now, we are looking ahead to a relative quiet night with NE'ly winds around 15 knots.

Frits Koek - Navigator