14/12/07  2:30 PM

As advertised the wind has shifted and stayed ENE Force 4. We’ve still got the Asymmetric up but the course is almost due South.  We’ll keep on like this for a few hours but then will have to think again.  If we carry on we will have to make up an additional 140 miles when we hang a right.  It’s a hot afternoon and the cloud cover is beginning to fill in.

17:00

The Wind Stays ENE.  We will drop the Asymmetric before dark and carry on with a poled out yankee.  If we’re too slow we will motor over night to make up some of the excess Easting.  Tomorrow afternoon the wind should go stronger and more Northerly in which case we could Gybe and stay more or less on course.

Nik’s computer has miraculously returned from the dead.  It must have been  just knocked out. He has now backed everything up so it if dies again it won’t be so serious.

18:00

Wind down to 10 knots from behind. Not really enough at the moment to warrant poling out the yankee, so the unfamiliar sound of a 240 horse power diesel invades our consciousness...  The Asymmetric actually furled okay this time as there was very little wind.

20:00

Steve Nik and I have just finished dinner, I’m about to have a shower and the fish line whirs into life.  It turns out to be a long slim snake like “Pipe Fish” which Steve spurns,  Actually while he was spurning it, it unhooked itself.

20:20

Engine off. Pole out.  We can  make 6 1/2 knots  on course so we’ll give it a go.

15/12/07 6AM

Solid Grey Morning. As I come on watch it begins to sprinkle lightly. Wind stayed NE  most of the night and boat speed maintained 6-7 knots. A rolling night  for all  sleepers.

Wind projection suggests  that sometime late tomorrow we will either run out of wind completely or what there is will be on the nose. I suppose it had to happen sometime.

The sprinkle becomes a deluge.  There is only one squall showing on the  48 mile screen of the radar.  It is about 6 miles in diameter and directly overhead.  The wind it brings gives great boat speed.

9:15

The wind settles in to the NE so after 12 days and 2306 miles at sea we find ourselves on a Starboard tack for the first time.  We’re able to steer about  15 degrees West of course but this is fine as we have an 18 miles cross track error in the bank from our earlier Easting.

The top spreader has damaged the mainsail which will have to come off to be repaired in Rio as well as the yankee. When I bought the boat I chose the swept back spreader option with jumper struts in order to avoid running backstays.  In the end Selden (the mast maker) said we had to have the runners as well. So now we have the worst of both worlds, swept back spreaders AND running backstays.  It is very difficult to avoid sail damage running downwind with the sweptback spreaders on this boat.

11:00 AM

24 Hour run 178 miles of which we motored 9 miles in 2 1/3 hours.  420 miles to go.  ETA currently Monday afternoon at 2PM, as boat speed is over 8 knots at the moment we might be a bit later.