Bad wind

Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Tue 25 Oct 2011 03:29
29:53.0N 12:31.8W
 
It has been a difficult day.  The bad wind, which we knew was coming, finally arrived and was worse than predicted.  I believe it was about a force 6/7 in our faces, although we can't know for sure because it blew off the wind instruments in the first couple of hours.  Something else that needs fixing in Gran Canaria.
 
The worst part was the waves, which were made up of two wave streams at 90 degrees to each other.  This made some steep sided waves and every minute or so we would come crashing down from the top of one wave into the face of the next, stopping dead.  The boat's progress when close hauled relies on maintaining some forward momentum so we made frustratingly little headway against the wind/waves.
 
Noone could sleep well, everyone was a bit queasy, we are all exhausted.
 
I tried assisting with the engines, but when we dropped from a particularly big wave then an alarm went off on both engines.  There is no diagnostic information on the control panel, so I have no idea what caused it or how to reset it. 
 
Finally, at about 10pm, the wind abated to be replaced with dead calm, which is not much better with no engines.  So right now we are running on just the starboard engine, with duck tape over the speaker to mute the alarm.  It seems to be going alright so far.  With the speed set to a consumption of 6 litres per hour we should have enough fuel to make it to Lanzarote by tomorrow evening.  Everyone is getting some sleep now.