Quickie

0700/17th position 2518 01845 trip 130 2000 to Cape Town so a Talisker moment later perhaps.

Sorry to hear about GroupamaIn this context a massive trimaran attempting a round-the-world record for the Jules Verne Trophy. They overtook us twice – once before we reached Cape Town on their first attempt which they abandoned after damaging a hull. They preceded us into Cape Town and we visited them there. They sailed back to France and set off again and overtook us way to the south before we reached Hobart. More about Groupama here (Wikipedia) but glad they are all safe.
We're in mini hoon mode twin poledAn explanation from Malcolm: It is quite normal for a yacht to 'pole out' its jib (the foresail) on the opposite side of the boat to the mainsail when running downwind - this is called goosewinging'. A spinnaker pole is attached to the mast at one end and the back corner (clew) of the jib at the other. That holds the jib at the right angle so that it catches the wind. On Berri they've found that they can often get good performance and a comfortable ride by taking the mainsail right down and setting a second jib poled out on the opposite side to the first. sitting in the NW flow at the top of the low and pointing more or less at CT. Perhaps another day then into the high and we'll slow down big time. Cold enough now for a blanket at night. Been running along the same roll of squally cloud for about 24 hours.

Saw what looked like a small yellowfin tuna swimming alongside us for quite a while.

Carol G – Forgot to include thanks for book offer yesterday sorry. Got out the recliner and put it on the grassy lawn on the afterdeck but too cloudy for Leonids. Thanks and G'day to everyone else – Good propagationIn the logs, this refers to the radiation of signal energy and is customarily qualified by the words abysmal, ratshit or lousy so will try to send this by HFHigh Frequency – usually refers to HF radio which is long range digital radio that Berrimilla used to send all but a few of the logs on both circumnavigations. The radio was connected via a Pactor 3 digital modem to Alex’s laptop and used the Sailmail software application called Airmail to send emails and pull in emails, weather and GRIB files. Airmail also supports Iridium satellite telephone messaging and Alex used this as backup when the HF radio died approaching England..