Exactly a year to the day Gipsy Moth IV was craned out of her Greenwich tomb she set out on 17 November for her crossing of the Atlantic from Santa Cruz in Tenerife. She is bound for Antigua 3,000 blue water miles away.

On board is Yachting Monthly’s consultant editor and chief boat tester, James Jermain, as mate, sailing with Richard Baggett, the United Kingdom Sailing Academy’s skipper with the most experience of GMIV and her cranky ways.

Already James, Richard, the three youngsters and their carer, will have experienced the GMIV roll: out on the ocean swell there is little wind forecast for the next three days and that means she will be up to her old tricks of rolling from gunwale to gunwale as the crew try to get all plain sail to balance her up.

But at least they will have plenty of other matters to chew over: James reported yesterday that victualling the yacht for the three to four week crossing was a gargantuan task.