.   And so it continued. It is now 2230 on the seventeenth, the wind has reached 37 knots over the last hour or so, it has not fallen below 25 knots all day and the seas have been building to their present impressive size, around 5 metres and fairly regularly breaking over P3, It is a bit like going through a carwash, plus she falls off the waves fairly regularly with a bone jarring crash, I keep telling myself that this is what she was built for but it is a horrible feeling. No ships today , although we passed a catamaran yesterday afternoon going to The Azores, had a chat on the VHF and compared weather notes and suchlike. Forecast is for the winds to drop to 20 knots and turn due North tomorrow morning, we are just  hoping it is correct. P3 standing up to the treatment pretty well, nothing broken yet, although the continual flexing is causing one or two minor leaks topsides. Reduced sail again this evening, we are now running on about 20% of main and genoa. Making around 5 knots which we are quite pleased about considering we are spending a lot of energy climbing these waves.