Never have I sailed De Franschman so fast for such a prolonged period of time! Ever since 1800 last night, when the wind piped up to 20-25 knots and I replaced the code 0 for a poled out High Aspect jib, we've been flying along at speeds only occasionally dropping below 7.5 knots, and topping 12.5. This inspite of my efforts to let the boat take it easy, as we are doing these speeds with this poled out jib and no less then 3 reefs in the main!

It's a bit of a pity that the wind did not come any earlier yesterday, as my daily run would have been more impressive, but that's not important. More important is the fact that in my class Dick Koopmans (as expected) is firmly in the lead, but that the 4 boats behind him are only a couple of miles apart. This makes interesting racing!

After loosing about half a day on the first night/second morning, messing about with my fore hatch, it seems that I did catch up with this group. Let's see what happens next.

Bart

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