Battering continues for VDH

Day 65 Position at 1300: 47°00S / 131°55E
Wind 30 knots from WSW, heavy seas.
Temperatures: day 10°C / night 7°C/ sea 10°C
Distance covered in the last 24 h: 195 miles.
To the Cape of Good Hope: 5,195 miles.
Lead over Monnet: 18 days and 8 hours.

Hello

It's still the same weather with squalls and a wind, which forces me to head further north rather than west. My only two recurrent jobs at the moment involve rolling and unrolling the solent jib (for three days now I've had two reefs in my mainsail!) and making frequent adjustments to my course to achieve a good compromise between speed and wind strength sailing upwind.

Whenever I mark my position on the chart, I am unpleasantly surprised to find that I have fairly strong currents dragging me towards the east, which for me is the wrong direction, of course!

I'm rather fond of Chinese food and have brought several packets of Asian specialities with me. Yesterday evening, as I was heating my Chinese pork, I had a look at the label onthe box. The manufacturer talks about the various religions out there and finishes with some famous proverbs. One of them is: "a little impatience can ruin a big project". I thought it was specially written for Adrien, so I cut it off and put it on my chart table to remind me to take notice of that, when I'm hesitating between speed and safety!

See you tomorrow,

JL VDH

A weekend with Claire ROSELLO's cuddly toy, a pretty little grey mouse.