All is Well

I am all well. The past 4 days have been quite demanding: we had a series of low pressure systems coming on to us while beating hard to get across Biscay with 40 knots wind (that is gale force), and heavy seas: we were for a couple of days under storm jib and mainsail with three reefs (that is the smallest configuration we can use before going to storm mainsail).

On deck it was hard work, below deck also with a lot of kit and gears getting loose and needing to be secured. Add to that the early seasickness that affected most of us and you understand while we were quite tired and with no time to do anything but sailing.

I had a few low passages wondering why I was doing this. I also banged the usual low rib that have kept bothering me all these years. So got a bit low in morale. That is until today as my seasickness is fully gone and I am getting my sea legs back: so all of a sudden I feel much better. We had an awesome night with the moon and the stars.

A few of the others got a bit banged up in the first few days: these boats shake you a fair bit.

Despite all these early challenges, we were doing pretty well, ending up this morning in 3rd position. But a bad manoeuvre at the end of the night, led to a rupture of part of the track that holds the mainsail into the mast. My watch was awoken this morning to see the results and after taking down the str job, we spend 5 hours getting the sail back up, albeit in a reduced configuration. Now we are racing again. We are still 3rd but we will have to sail at a reduced speed so may struggle to keep our position.

At the third place after three days full of drama, just to later realise that the battle of this leg would continue to the very last minute of it...

4 September 2025