Sam Davies reports...

Trying times on board Artemis Ocean Racing

Hello everyone

Well, last night was a BIG night!

First of all, Sidney and I are relieved to hear that JoJo and JF are safe on dry land, but so, so sad to hear about the damage to BT. It is pretty unfair as these two were my favourites to win and they had sailed a great race so far. I am gutted for them.

Our problems, compared to BT, are on a minor scale but have significantly slowed us down today and we are waiting for the wind to calm before we can attack the repairs and DIY that we need to do to get Artemis up and running as near to 100% as possible.

Last night the wind was in the furious fifties with regular bursts of 50-55 knots and 45+ knots average. Artemis was handling the conditions really well and I was LOVING it (in that strange way no-one (not even Sidney) seems to understand!)

Unfortunately for us we hit one bad (well, worse than the others) wave that knocked the bow round through the wind and CRASH tacked us!! Suddenly our world was at 90 degrees as the top of the mast wasnt far from the water. It is wierd as there was an eerie silence as all the sails were pinned in and we were tipped over, being blown sideways like a piece of spindrift. We were in complete shelter as the cockpit was suddenly below the rest of the boat!

When your world is at near-90 degrees and you are walking on the walls instead of the floor it is hard not to panic, but in my life it seems quite a regular occurrence so fortunately Sidney and I calmly talked through the steps of what to do to get Artemis back on her feet without any damage. It isn't easy working a boat that is on its side!!!

Anyway, all went well and soon (well, after 1.2 miles of sideways drift action) we were back up and screaming along downwind (yes, that's the wrong way but we had no option). We took the opportunity to roll the staysail to preserve it and managed to tack back to wait for the front to pass. Unfortunately our sails were suffering and to add to that the third reef point in the boom blew up so we had no choice but to drop the main.

Damage report (well, some of it anyway!)
- a crack in the coachroof (due to near-capsize action and unusual water pressure on the roof we think)
- a batten lost out of the main (pocket has chaffed through letting batten escape) plus more sail damage
- third reef anchorage at end of boom ripped out of place
- mast rotation lines chaffed through
- Iridium lost to water ingress (we are on our emergency one now)

For the batten, we need to juggle the battens in our main around and to do this we need a bit calmer conditions so we are sailing slow for now under solent only until the wind dies enough for us to deal with it (later on tonight) then we can also fix the boom and reef point problems.

Since then, we have tidied and cleaned up Artemis who was looking a bit like a bomb site. We even thought about the pit-stop option but we prefer to try to repair and carry on as we will loose less time... We have eaten and slept and even washed and changed clothes (GREAT feeling!)

So, bring on the calm conditions so we can get going again!!!

Hope everyone else is OK out here. It's pretty hardcore stuff this last few days!!!

On a positive side, it is a pure pleasure to sail with Sidney, who is an amazing sailor, and also can see an optimistic view to the whole situation. Despite our problems, stresses and difficulties, we have not stopped smiling, laughing and enjoying the whole experience. It is nights like last night when the team is tested to its limits and the Artemis team are shining through.

Sam x

More photos on page 2....