Alex sent this brief e-mail from Funchal - the final 100 miles of the first leg were quite challenging:

"Although stuck for two days with no wind off of Finisterre, the race went pretty well until about the last hundred miles. All of the following happened in 4 hours. I woke up to the autopilot off-course alarm, and went up to find half my spinnaker streaming from the masthead, and half dragging in the water. A possibly defective hydraulic pump had torn through my batteries, so when I went to put the small spi up, the pilot conked out for lack of batts, sending the boat into a crash gybe, main halyard parted, main came down, crucified against the shrouds, breaking 3 battens. Then, I went to put up the gennaker, and the harness broke, crunching the pole. So, I limped the last 100 miles or so under genoa. Oh well.

Thanks a ton for your help; I'm really excited to have the new Samson stuff. One less thing to worry about."

- Alex