Adventurous First Day on Team Russia Qualifier

At 09.10 BST this morning we received coordinated from the boat showing they were making their way steadily north east, making the most of the wind and setting themselves up nicely on their passage around the British Isles. Kosatka started off Ventnor yesterday at 11.13BST. The google earth "pin" on this map also shows the position at 20.43 BST last night and the most recent this morning at 09.10BST.

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Skipper Andreas Hanakamp sends us an update from the boat:
There was lots of pressure in the air when we left Portland Harbour to cover the 2000 mile qualifying sail Volvo requires from teams wishing to sail the Volvo Ocean Race, starting October this year. Steady 40kts, gusting even higher, let us start with 2 reefs in the main and a jib top heading east. Just the head of the jib top ripped off soon after we set off, the load distribution between sail and its cable was not perfect, giving Ben (the sailmaker, not the chef) a job for the rest of the day. Ben handstitched new webbing on.

The English Channel lay past us in eight hours. At sunset we passed through the Dover Straits under a full moon, with the breeze slightly easing and the waves easing off. We changed for the A6 and later for a reaching fractional as the breeze headed.

The boat is soaking wet as are we, constant spray that is thrown up by the sprayrails, producing a cloud of spray while keeping the solid green water off the boat.

We are in the middle of the North Sea having covered 370 miles since Portland. Ahead we expect the wind to become lighter before filling in from the SE tomorrow.