Day 2

Wednesday 29th May 12.00 BST

Position – 49 50 21 N 09 39 9 W

Log 277 miles (143 over last 24 hours)

I have now been sailing for almost 24 hours on a starboard tack in to sustained winds of 28-32kn from the NW. I have 3 reefs in the main and the heavy weather jib rigged on the inner forestay. The sea state is very rough and I am sailing at 40° AWA to keep the Hound moving well through the swell

I have nothing of any great interest to report.  The boat is very wet with substantial volumes of water breaking over the bow.  I got very wet having spent 20 minutes on the foredeck rigging the inner stay and HW jib. I managed to get some good sleep last night, not wishing to spend much time in the cockpit and getting into a good pattern of 1 hour on watch and 1 hour asleep. I was woken on only 3 occasions by the AIS alarm going off with commercial shipping entering the guard zone, but apart from that I have not seen another boat since yesterday morning.

At one point in the small hours I woke up to extreme calm.  Thinking that the gale had finally passed through, I poked my head up the companionway only to discover that we had gone hove-to and Arnold (the auto-helm) was unable to get the boat back on course, so I had to sort it out and got very wet again!

On to domestic matters, I have cleaned the cooker.  Having inadvertently left the hatch open for a few minutes, a huge wave broke over the bow and poured straight down the companionway on to the cooker. Flooded with sea water, I mopped it all up with a bit of kitchen towel and she looks all sparkling clean – who needs cif?

As regards Boris, we have had a chat this morning and he has apologised for his behaviour yesterday, so I have let him out of the chart table.  He said he was feeling a bit sick – and he did look a bit brown, so I felt sorry for him and we are all kissed and made up.

I have had some beautiful birds for company this morning – not sure what they are – quite big, white with yellow faces and tails with black tips on their wings – a bit like a strange flying penguin.

Back tomorrow with some better weather (hopefully)

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BFN

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