Finally there are a good group of us who I am sure are going to say quite close together, quire probably until the end of the race. Akena has taken a few good decisions and has joined our group, and I am happy for him, but I wouldn’t want him to overtake me.
The weather is quite tricky especially after the gate. There is a low pressure system that doesn’t seem to want to move south and is travelling east, meaning we have to sail on a reach that is very close to the wind on the way to Cape Horn for the next 245 hours and probably with three reefs and a stay sail or storm jib. The weather report is giving us 35 knots but we will have to follow it with 40 and squalls of up to 50. It really isn’t the tastiest dish to be1000 miles from Cape Horn and presented with the worst storm of the whole time in the southern ocean.
After the gate there are very few tactics involved in the first 24 hours- it is simply to go towards Cape Horn, the problem is that if we go too fast the weather can get dangerous and we will get into “breaking boat” kind of conditions, which is something I am personally not very interested in.
I have kept the boat in quite good shape to be 100% for the Southern Atlantic (with the exception of the rudder)and if I have to go a little slower to let the toughest weather pass I will definitely do that for safety reasons…but I am hoping that in the next few days the squall with move away a little and it won’t be as severe as it is right now.
When we get to within 400 miles of Cape Horn things also look like they are going to get complicated but this time with lows and highs forming. This means that the wind is very shifty and when this happens we will have to see how everything evolves.
Right now I am happy with my position. It is day 54, and in 5 or 6 days we will be in Cape Horn, and that is definitely a good milestone after all the problems I have had, although I have to admit that one of my dreams is to try and finish the race in less than 90 days. It is possible as the numbers are looking good, but we will have to see how the trip up through the Atlantic goes, particularly in the Southern Atlantic where it can often be a real lottery.
The boat is fine. Yesterday I broke a main sail track in agybe at 32 knots, 2 reefs and a Jib-Top, and it also broke the port side lazy-jack. They are not huge problems and as soon as it is better weather in an hour or so I’ll have the two things solved without losing much time.
Having been sailing for such a long time with fog and clouds (nearly a whole week) I have put the hydro-generators on twice and everything is ok. The low cloud or fog is the worst thing for the solar panels because when it’s cloudy like now, they are at 18 knots, at 50 volts – not bad for no sun.
Life on board has been a bit tricky in the last 24 hours, with a lot of manoeuvres, trimming sails and big weights. Today has been madness with winds of between 19 and 40 knots and shifting 35º. Sometimes I was at 11 knots and at others gliding at 27 in a question of minutes, adding and removing ballast….at least the squalls are lasting just a few hours at a time.
The pilot has most definitely been earning its salary, assometimes it has to make strokes of 20 degrees to keep theboat’s heading. Normally it never goes over 8, but since there is a part of the rudder missing it has to work harder.
It is quite cold and I have every single piece of clothing on right now. Yesterday I opened a new set of foulies and I am really noticing the difference although I still have freezing feet; dry but freezing. So I am going to have to use my heat-pack trick again….I’ll see if I can send you a photo of it.
