Osaka Cup- Update from Escapade 11/4/13

At 1800 EST this evening Escapade report her position having run 100 miles since the previous sched. good excuse for a splicing of the main brace we say, and so it was.
Meanwhile the hounds appear to have lost the scent and are sniffing around the equator trying to pick it up again ... except that is for Optimus Prime who must have the other copy of Escapade play book "travel the road less taken" and are getting a good run out wide.
Thats all for now, we leave you with Escapade thundering through the Caroline islands at 9+ Kt having cracked off 20 degrees to duck an atoll up ahead. We've checked two charts and an admiralty pilot book to make sure this one is where we think it is!........

And a good place to point it too given some of the smells coming from other directions!
0300 Thurs 11/4
something has definitely died up in the starboard quarter berth, be it an errant flying fish (we regularly find dead ones on the deck each morning although not fresh enough to eat), Andy (has been missing again for a few days), Joey's socks, a dozen eggs, or whatever, oh boy is it high up there. The other one is the atolls we are starting to pass, unfortunately all at night so far. The first one we decided to give a wide berth to leeward as it was pitch dark and chart disagreed with the chart plotter by about a mile on the location. No problem locating it in the dark however, you could still smell the bird droppings from 5 miles!
nothing much to repot today just the usual life aboard. Dragged the main down through the centre hatch at 10 pm last night to repair the damage done when a stronger than usual squall came through. The squalls usually cause an increase in wind speed of 5 - 8 knots, this one was more like 12 - 20 increase. I know it got to 35kt because that is when the high wind alarm goes off, which it did and kindly popped up a little window in the instrument I was concentrating on to tell me that there was a bit more wind about. Pity it also obscured the bit of data I was using to keep me on course.
1730 11/4
no problem, has joey has already noted we wiped out the sikaflex and sticky back repair tape and set to work. found another hole up on the boom section and fixed that in situ.Continued to hum along at 7 kt until the sikaflex set and put her back up again. by now the wind had settled into the ~20kt beam reach we were expecting and we are now reaching under @2 and 3rd reef doing around 8 kt. squalls have mainly abated and the sun has spent the day trying to peep through.
Joey went searching for the source of the smell and returned with the eggs, one of which was cracked - very carefully dispatched to neptune.
How am I? Nice of you to ask, Hot, wet, hairy and smelly (not as bad as the egg). Wet - either from the rain, the spray or the sweat, often all three.
The $20 Supa Cheap Auto fan is the most used piece of gear on board at present and we can only sleep with it pointing at us all the time.
Ciao Robert