A TOUGH START - N25 59.38 W20 46.46

OOJAH's AWESOME ODYSSEY
Peter & Christene Tanner
Thu 29 Nov 2012 12:54
Having crossed the line in aroud 6th we made rapid progress down the West coast of Gran Canaria in rising wind & heavy showers. By the time we had got both reefs in we'd lost 5 battons from the sails. During the night we had to completely drop the main with over 30 kts wind over the quarter. The sea was about as rough as I ever seen it with breaking rollers attempting to engulf us from behind & Oojah scurrying along as fast as she could to get away from them!
We put 195 nm into the first 24 hours & the as the wind eased got a spinaker up. However when we took thhe spinnaker down for the night we noticed a small horizontal tear in the leech of the main with the potential to spread rapidly. The main came down for the night & we're now trying to patch it for light air use later on. Everybody has worked really hard over the last 24 hours despite not feeling so good. There is a sense of disappointment that getting in by 14 dec for Grif to catch his aeroplane now looks really difficult, but there's a spirited effort to find work arounds & we've had the spinaker up with no main this morning. Everyone sends their love to all - let's hope the weather gods are a bit kinder over the next fortnight.