Dracula's blood to the rescue

Lia Ditton gets into Halloween mode to track down a leak

I have brushed my teeth and changed my socks. I am a new person! Which I needed to be, because in the space of 24 hours, conditions have built from no knots to twenty knots of wind; I have blown out one autopilot [at least the rudder reference unit for it] and overcome a major "raw" water leak in the engine department. In the early hours of the morning, you would have found me still tethered to the cockpit floor, asleep on the companion way step. 'Ah! That must be a comfy place for a doze?' You must be wondering. Let's just say that the bunk might have been better.

It is circa 2am UK time, which is Swedish time minus two [I haven't yet figured out how to change the time on the Silva wall barometer!]. Only an hour or two earlier I had bailed the cabin sole back to dryness and so what could be described as "mild" distress came over me when I went below to discover that it was once again awash.

With gesticulating fists, that favourite Israeli-on-tour-in-India phrase sprang to mind, 'Why like this?!' "Water ingress" had been a particularly acute problem on Shockwave during the OSTAR 2005. "Water ingress" and its associated fever of panic was not something I especially wished to experience encore une fois. With a patched bilge pipe lacing the floor, a 10 litre jerry can of drinking water lurking suspiciously nearby, a brass inlet valve that had seen brighter days and a salt water impellor with an accessibility problem, the options appeared endless.

Short of a nice little bottle of die or food colouring, was I set to spend hours on my knees in the murk with a head torch glued to my temple, testing for drips? To my good fortune, I yesterday discovered an illicitly-stowed tube of "Faux Sang" in the medical kit when I had been routing for a plaster. However temporarily un-amused by this minor weight addition I may have been at the time, I was now keen to fully applaud the sense of humour of my shore crew. Put to good use, the Dracula fake blood did the trick! After various hours of further sponging and running the engine with the cover off to be sure, my culprit was clear; one rather battered bilge pipe, the victim of one boot too many.

Every other wave, the deck sluices with water and rains into the cockpit. It is HPX weather. Dangerous and I are tanking upwind at 9-10kts. Give me the upwind motion of a trimaran versus this bucking Bronko mono ride, anyday. But then crack off the sheets into a blast reach and Dangerous When Wet, Ex- White Spirit, Ex- Spirit of Canada, certainly does rip. Only 1000 odd miles to bikini and sunblock!