I am the boat captain on the new Roger 46 Yeoman. Got the boat off the tanker in Lauderdale on Monday at 6pm and went to Pier 66. On the way to Pier 66 there was an electrical burning smell so I ended up tying up off Harrier to assess situation, couldn’t find flashlights and figured out the cabin lights were shorting out on the carbon.

Spent a day dealing with customs and cruising permits as we are a UK boat and the crew were awesome putting the boat together up at 5am and bed at 12pm to get everything done. All very exciting and stressful. The boat was commissioned in December and the feeder race was the first race for the boat. Bit of a baptism of fire.

We only had 9 crew for the race down – all jet lagged from flights from the UK. The GPS went down so I kept us in deep water i.e. more gulfstream against us. We only jibed 10 times in the night. Boat was going at 14 – 25 knots and water was a times up to your knees when you were on the grinder pedastal. Boat nosedived a lot even with crew sitting behind the mainsheet and all the sails and gear aft. Lots of water down below. Fastnet on this boat will be hard requiring wetsuits. We saw 32 knots true and had 8 – 10 foot waves. No huge breakages – a little nerve racking for me though as Monday was the first time I had seen the boat and met the crew. Very tired now with a long list of things to get sorted and on my way to Lauderdale to pick up the crew van and 14 peoples gear.

We go from here to Lauderdale for three weeks in the cradle then deliver her down to Heineken regatta then to St Thomas, BVI regatta, Antigua, Dockwise to Newport, NYYC race week, block island and then load her up to go home to UK for Cowes week and Fastnet.