Breare ready to hit the Atlantic

Dramatic pictures of the crew of the Nova Scotia clipper repairing their mainsail

Breare's Clipper blog
Andy Breare
BBC Spotlight's Andy Breare and cameraman Geoff Burrell are sailing the Atlantic aboard the Nova Scotia Clipper. Andy will be keeping a regular blog of his and Geoff's adventure here on the BBC website.

Today's the day we set off across the Atlantic on our yacht Nova Scotia bound for Southern Ireland.

It's been a hectic few days for the crew getting the boat ready after the trials of last week.

You may have seen the pictures we sent back on Spotlight at the weekend of the race between Halifax and Sydney.

This was supposed to be a straightforward 250-mile race up the Canadian Coast but turned out to be anything but straightforward.

We left Halifax on Thursday morning in beautiful sunshine but things went from bad to worse.

Andy Breare survived the sail tear unhurt, if a little windswept

First we had four members of the crew patching up friction burns to their hands after a spinnaker change went wrong, then we got caught in a storm with winds gusting force 10. We had two reefs in the main but the wind tore into the sail, shredding it like tissue paper.

The crew knew they had to get the sail down quickly but it was stuck. Our skipper Rob McInally went up the mast to cut the sail free with the rest of the crew trying to gather it below and the boat lurching all over the place.

We limped into Sydney in sixth place with no mainsail and an exhausted crew. Luckily we have a spare main in Halifax and this weekend, repairs have been going on day and night to get our boat fit for the Atlantic.

Geoff Burrell, our cameraman, got some dramatic pictures of the mast shredding and we are both fine. It reminds you of how quickly conditions can change at sea but also how resilient these Clipper boats are.

I have been sea-sick just the once but it was very rough and I did make it to the loo. Also some of our filming kit got rather wet in the storm so we've spent the weekend testing and re-testing it to make sure it works for the hop over the pond.

Had a lovely Father's Day card from my kids yesterday so will stick it by my bunk and think of them while the boat is tossing around and I am trying to sleep. Thanks to Tabitha and Archie.

Here's hoping for a quieter trip.

Andy