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The sail is going fantastically well so far. The weather is sunny, warm, and at last we have a bit of wind too. Not much mind, but enough to have the engine off at last and with a bit of tide assisting us, we are doing 3-4 knots.

Getting Debanessa ready for the voyage was a bit of a slog, every afternoon well into the evening, Nicky and I were mounting clutches, blocks and running the spinnaker halyards, pole up and down and rerouting all the existing lines to the new Starboard winch and clutches. It was hard work, but for the first time a few minutes ago I was able to get some decent tension on the genoa and get those damned wrinkles out of the sail at last.

Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves at the moment, and apart from the water pressure system which has gone on the blink again, everything on Debanessa is holding together.

I did some running repairs on the mounting for the Autohelm, which was replaced last Wednesday and was not properly secured in its mounting. Two trimmed down pegs and one sliced thumb (those Challenge Knives are sharp), and the thing is secured at last. The water pump pressure system is a bit of a pain, and seems to be when we are on Starboard tack. I noticed that the breather on the Starboard side did not seem to be breathing when we topped off the tanks at Ocean Village, so I will go and poke it with a sharpened stick in a minute to see it I can cajole it into cooperating.

Otherwise, the web site has the up to date log, so you can keep track of our progress, mobile phone connection permitting.At the moment we are ahead of our ETA for Friday lunchtime (3rd August) in Inverness. The weather forecasts give us more wind ahead (up to Force 7) so it could be a speedy passage.

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