As I enter night down here it is now dark and it’s still a pretty rough southern ocean sea. Saying that conditions have definitely improved from what they have been and I have been able to maintain good speed. Last night I had a bit of a shock, I was sat in the cockpit reasonably relaxed and then Bang! My first instant reaction was the mast I looked up and everything was fine. I then looked back and could see the windward rudder was up. I checked the rudder system and could see the fuse had broken. Something must of hit the windward rudder. Luckily on our rudders we have a fuse system in place which is a weak link, breaking to allow the rudder to kick up so it doesn’t break. I replaced the fuse and put the rudder back down. There doesn’t seem to be any damage to the rudder blade so most likely it was a soft impact maybe with a fish. I am glad that we have got the fuse and it did its job well in preserving the rudder.
I gybed last night so am currently sailing on starboard. I was sorry to hear about Bernard and also sorry to lose someone sailing close by. I know too well the frustration of his situation. I have spent the majority of the day also working on my hydro generators but luckily I have been able to work on these whilst still travelling at speed. Conditions are due to get quite a bit lighter by 2am tomorrow which should help me with these repairs.
