Ellen Macarthur Trust

More bad weather but everyone fine

Here we go again, back on the rollercoaster ride and have been for the past 24 hours, making for an uncomfortable night last night and the prospect of the same today.  We are still making for the Cape Verde islands on a course of 220 degrees, exactly the same direction the wind is blowing at 25 knots (force 5) so we are quite literally pounding into the oncoming waves. One of the engines is as good as dead as the fuel in that tank is now so concentrated with crap in the fuel we can not run it any more. The other engine can not rev about 1100 revs for the same reason and is pushing us along at a paultry 2 knots.  At this rate, our ETA in Cape Verde isles is early next week.  Considering we left Lanzarote a week ago today, our progress has been dire.
 
On the positive side we are all well and Susana and our cameraman Digby are in remarkably good spirits considering they must have asked themselves on more than one occassion, "Why am I doing this?" as they crawl into the aft-engine bay to blow the bad disel out of the fuel pipes; the heat of the engines, the smell of diesel, the confinement of the engine bay and motion of the boat only adding to their discomfort - I certainly picked the easy-straw by focussing on the sailing, these guys deserve medals.
 
Despite great support from Raymarine to fix our wind-vane problem, it is simply too rough for Susana to start undertaking an electrical diagnostic assesment in the electrical locker at the moment so we will have to wait for the sea state to calm down a bit first.  To be honest, we don't need electronics to tell us the wind is on the nose at the moment, flappy sails give the same information, but thank you everyone at Raymarine for your support and patience - I'm sure it is something I've done by mistake, not the kit.
 
A massive 3 cheers for British Airways.  Knowing our families' outbound flights would be affected by the strike next week, Elaine took a call yesterday to say that they had brought all of our flights forward by 24 hours so our family and friends would get there on time. Thank you Mary and your team at BA, that was so kind and considerate of you.
 
Just finally, Im finding it very hard indeed to type on my laptop, quite simply because of the eratic motion of the boat. As such, I can only reply to the most urgent emails, I'm sorry.  I will continue to write blogs when possible but please bear with me.  Surely this weather has to change soon. Elaine said there is  cm of snow forecast in Hampshire tonight.
 
Hey, just caught another fish, a big Dorado - fish curry for tea - now, cooking, there's another challenge which Digby and Susana could write an entire book and claim another medal.