Well past Cape Finisterre already, and more wind is arriving

“Basically, decided not to push too hard and to be conservative. Sailing with one reef and the genoa at the moment. Got a lot of sleep [ie 2.5 hours!!]. Don’t feel great right now, but on the whole it was necessary, so that’s been quite cool.

“Had a bit of a drama yesterday evening just before midnight the main rudder cassette kicked up and broke two of the fuses. I heard a noise, I couldn’t work out what it was, went all over the boat couldn’t see anything and this was about two hours previous and then there was another noise and that’s when I saw the box had kicked up.

“But what I think may have actually happened was that maybe in the rough stuff at the beginning, the rudder had been hit hard enough to loosen it and actually stretched the fuses a little bit and then just as we were sailing along one bust then the other one bust. I couldn’t see any marks on the rudder and I replaced them. A pain in the arse job!

“On the latitude of Finisterre and sailing into this depression now. Bit windier – all on – sea getting bigger now. Back into strong wind. The breeze didn’t go as light as we thought it would, average speed went down overnight quite a lot – 2 hrs at 17 knots, couple at 15 knots, bit rubbish – but now we appear to be off again.

“Went through ridge of the high last night. Made a conscious decision not to put the gennaker up. Probably would have had it up for about six hours so decided not to go without it. You know, in retrospect I could have managed, but with 20 knots, gusting 23 knots and averaging 17 knots speed over ground its okay. I am in a different mindset…

Expecting wind to increase quite rapidly today and tonight.”