Up to Southend

Dee Caffari and her all female crew on Aviva ahead of the game on their round Britain record attempt

British yachtswoman Dee Caffari and her all female crew on board Aviva have had a successful first night in their attempt to break the record for sailing around Britain and Ireland. Having departed from Gosport at 6pm yesterday, the crew crossed the official start line off Ventnor on the Isle of Wight at 21:09:36 and are sailing in an anti-clockwise direction.

“It's been wicked," commented Dee. "We are really on the pace and have worked hard overnight dodging shipping in the English Channel with lots of manoeuvres and sail changes already. We are about to enter an area of variable weather which will keep us pretty busy for the rest of today.”

The all female crew are hoping to making good progress today, despite a dying low pressure system, before picking up a new breeze that will set them on their way again and continue to increase as a cold front comes in.

At 09h00 this morning, Caffari and crew were passing Southend-on-Sea and were approximately 10 hours ahead of the pace required to beat the outright record.

From on board navigator Miranda Merron writes:

We have been spoilt for the first part of this record attempt - we crossed the start line off Ventnor just before sunset on a beautiful evening, endured less than 4 hours darkness, many hours of downwind sailing, and sunshine today. We are enjoying the clement conditions while they last, as there is some really revolting weather and a lot of wind on the way tomorrow.

We have been making good progress since the start, but the last couple of hours have been rather light, as expected, but it should fill in soon. This morning, we had to alter course to avoid an enormous wind farm in the making - not marked on the chart. It's time to read the tea leaves and work out just how much upwind we will be punished with in a couple of days time.

It's a rather masochistic pastime, but we all want to know!

Miranda

See the wind charts for the rest of this week on page 2....