Well another somewhat bumpy and tiring night. Our regular feast last night was also reefed and limited to cold hand food of hard boiled eggs, dry crackers, cheese and the odd clandestine mars bar. Even the cups of tea got were reduced. Our gourmet chef and over stocked larder both had a night off. The wind and then seas eventually abated, but not without fist some entertainment in the form of a broken (chafed) furler drive line. Lots of fun jury rigging that at 3 am on a bouncybow. A few hours of stitching and re rigging once the sun came up and the seas abated, has it now back in good order and hopefully the chafe point correctly identified and fixed with leather protection. A much easier day so far today with light to moderate south westerly's on a left over swell and clear sunny skies.
Still moving, but hard on the nose and only low boat speeds. We have taken advantage today of the sun and dry weather to do some tidying up, washing and getting some accurate dip readings on the fuel tank and weighing our gas bottles. Power drain has been high and we are looking at ways of conserving power so we don't have to run the generator as long and so that we save our precious fuel. as this race looks like taking longer than planned. From what we can gather, several boats have stopped at the Verdi's for fuel and a rest and now appear to be rejoining the fleet. Potato peeling, blogging and hand steering for maximum speed is the order of the day from here. Looks like the
feast resumes tonight unless the weather suddenly turns. Our only smoker on board will have his last cigarette tonight and then finishes (for good) so if there is no blog later in the week, he may have gone mad and shot us all.
Hopefully a good nights sleep for everyone tonight along with a fine meal and tomorrow hopefully some breeze from anywhere other than on the nose.
Regards from Nick and the other Naughty boys.