Day 7

Monday 3ndrd June 12.00 BST

Position – 46 26 90N 24 14 20W

Log 948 miles (155 over last 24 hours)

I start my blog today with a bit of an apology for the rather emotional nature of yesterday and am glad to report that, whilst very wet, all is good aboard the hound.

12.00 bst today marks the end of my first week.  It has been mixed – to say the least; but I am now into the meat of the race and there is still a long way to go – just about 2,000 miles!  A combination of my idiocy in not reading the Sailing Instructions properly and a number of unforeseen hick-ups, have meant that it has been a struggle.

The last 24 hours saw some lively conditions once the predicted SW hit – although it ended up a bit more S than SW.  At 18.00 yesterday evening I rigged the staysail on the inner forestay in readiness and got soaked on the foredeck for 20 mins.  By 21.00 it was blowing 25-28 knots and with the staysail and 2 reefs in the main the boat was smoking.  At one point I recorded 9.7kn.

At some point during the night whilst I was having a kip for an hour or so, I was suddenly woken up by Boris flying across the cabin and landing on my head.  I thought he must be a bit scared with all this rough weather and wanted to get under the sleeping bag with me, but he was quickly followed by 2 packets of crisps, a packet of nuts and a pack of kitchen towel.  I tried to get up and discovered that the boat had been knocked flat.  It was about 5.00 this morning and the wind was in to the mid 30’s and a southerly swell was running with waves the size of a small family house. I quickly put a 3^rd reef in the main and made a cup of tea as I didn’t see that I was likely to get any more sleep in these conditions.  The monitor was struggling to hold the boat on course as the swell was rounding us up on a regular basis – so I decided to hand steer for a bit – wet – wet – wet. I got drenched!

I gather that I disappeared from the tracker for a while this morning – it appears that it needed a re-boot – I suspect from the volume of water that it had endured – but as at 16.00 this afternoon I am back up and running.

The good news is that (for the time being at least) I have charge from my engine – WooHooo.  The bad news is that my botch up repair to the monitor finally gave out this morning in the gales – so I will have to repair it again if possible.

Nothing much else to report – all the last 24 hours taken up dealing with the weather.  My 24 hour run was 155 miles, an improvement of 40 miles on the previous two days.  The wind has dropped away again now to around 12kn, so I have a chance to have a clear up and start putting the boat back in order.  Ahh yes – during the night my starboard spinnaker halyard and pole-up line came adrift and are now half way up the mast – so I may have to go for a climb at some stage, but with no sign of any down-wind sailing on the horizon, I am in no hurry!

I have not had a chance to read anymore Fifty Shades, but I will be back with some more commentary on that load of old bollocks tomorrow.

I am going to cook myself some stew and rice this evening and probably follow it up with a bar of galaxy.

BFN

C, Boris and Beagle