Fortunately our preventer “caught’ all the accidental gybes and there was no obvious damage to the rig.  We did some experiments to determine what was happening. Dead downwind the wind was shown as about 140 degrees (instead of 180), no wonder we had gybed accidentally!  We rebooted the entire Raymarine electronics - no difference.  We then went into the menus of the wind transducer system.  Low and behold there was a manual offset of 38 degrees!!! How on earth did that get in there? Some terrible computer glitch?  The sea was too rough to do a full calibration but we changed the offset and reset the wind direction.  It appeared to be working and we started sailing under genoa only and all was well.

The wind was up (18-22kts) and a beautiful day albeit quite rough with large Atlantic swell.  After breakfast followed by mid morning scones baked by Nina, we unfurled the mainsail fully, poled out the genoa and took off!  Speeds mostly 8/9kts plus with some 10s and occasional 12s surfing down waves - fantastic fun all day and into the evening.  The wind transducer and autopilot in wind vane mode appeared to be working normally again thank goodness.

We talked to a nearby yacht (Chubby Bunny) - a cat.  They had had a bad night too.  Their cruising chute halyard had pulled through the clutch and the sail ended up in bits under the yacht.  They managed to retrieve it at 0100!

Great sailing all day which we needed after yesterday. Lovely sundowner and we saw a wonderful Belt of Venus to the East.  Nina made one of my favourites for dinner - Tavern Sandwiches.

Simon