Leaders forge south

Form seems to be inextricably set in Around Alone

Tim Kent reports from on board Everest Horizontal

Yesterday turned out to be quite a wild ride. Predicted wind speeds were from 25 to 30 knots, and we smoked along in those winds for most of the day, with some impressive boatspeeds, including lots of long surfs in the 20s up to 23.5 knots.

A couple of hours after dark, right about 22 hours ago - local time here is 8:24 pm - things started to heat up. The wind began to build slowly until it was steadily in the mid 30s. I went on deck to assess the sail we had up and was very unhappy to see that we had shed the second from top batten and that the top batten was broken and flogging.

The wind was building quickly and I rolled up the headsail, rolled out the storm jib and set to work getting the main down in wind that had quickly built to 40 to 50 knots. It took almost 30 minutes to get the main down into to the lazy bag and lashed in place. I rolled out the solent and rolled the storm jib back up. Then came the long process of cleaning up the cockpit - there are no fewer than 17 lines that live in the cockpit and keeping them under control is vital - they need to run free when they are needed and not escape the sheet bags and stream behind the boat to get caught in the rudders.

After all of that I headed below for a nap - I was exhausted.

Daylight showed that the damage to the sail was more extensive than I expected. The batten pocket for the second batten is virtually destroyed - it looks like it was attacked by hungry dogs. The top batten is in pieces in the batten pocket and I am having a hard time getting them out. On top of this, its still blowing hard; 55 knots as I am writing this, and it hasbeen 35 to 60 all day, making sewing work on deck a bit of a challenge.

I am getting advice from the Quantum loft in Cape Town, so I hope to be able to get the sail back in action tomorrow after some extensive patch work.

The motion of the boat can only be described as violent, exacerbated by the fact that it is not balanced by the main. I'm wearing my cute Petzel climbing helmet to avoid whacks in the head - I need access to all of the few brain cells I have left. Fortunately there is no one to see me, so the helmet stays on.

The solent is giving us fairly good speed with this wind; we have remained in double digits most of the day with a few forays into the 20s - with just a small jib! But I want that main up and will work hard tomorrow to get it back on the job.

Time for some dinner - it's dark as the inside of your pocket and I am ready to eat!

More tomorrow,

Tim