Final storm between MacArthur and finish line

by Kingfisher Challenges on 6 Feb 2005 On Day 70 in an early morning call as she attempts to break the around the world speed record on B & Q Ellen MacArthur told her shore team, ‘It's pretty bad already, it's going to be horrendous.’

‘The models where I am now say I should have 18 knots of breeze and I've got a 28 knot average already, gusting 33 and it's not supposed to get bad for another 12 hours.

‘Going to be lucky to come through this without breaking something or capsizing, to be frank, because its already really rough and its going to get really, really rough. The waves are going to be absolutely huge and we're going to be going straight across them which is the worst thing you could possibly do.

‘I'm really worried. Just got to keep things together for the next 24 hours.’ The storm is certainly not the final hurdle for MacArthur, busy shipping lanes crossing the Bay of Biscay and ocean debris will still be concerns, but it will be a case of hanging in there without breaking anything.

‘At the beginning of the night, I got about an hour and a half [of sleep] because the breeze was due to increase, but it died, so I thought I should get some sleep then.

'Then I had hours and hours in the night when I couldn't sleep. I was so cold, it's freezing out here, absolutely freezing. I just couldn't get warm and there were ships around as well. I tell you something, I am going to be looking forward to sunrise tomorrow morning.

‘To be honest, an 80 degree True wind angle would be nice. Currently sailing closer than this at 60 TWA, but wind due to move left, but unfortunately its going to be in the same heading that it is right now, so the wind is going to come round a bit more from the north-west, but sadly the sea won't for a while.

‘I've got staysail and two reefs at the moment and I normally go for the third reef when we've got consistently over 30 knots. We're not far off third reef which I didn't think we would be putting in until this afternoon.

‘It's been more stable in the last hour, there were a couple of spikes but it is increasing. I really don't want to bust anything and the conditions we had last night that stopped me sleeping were not having enough sail up and falling off every wave.

‘When the wind went down to 15 knots it was really terrible - everything just shakes, you're not even loaded and the boat just falls and that's awful - you just try to find the compromise between the two.

'I can't relax at all because it's not a relaxing situation and it's not like 'don't worry, you will be in three days', because right now we are facing the worst conditions from a boat-break point of view that we've had in the entire trip without a doubt.

‘At least with the south-easterly the swell should die down a bit - it doesn't look like the strongest of the wind really creates a massive swell in Biscay because by the time you get the shift, it's actually quite light in Biscay the whole time.

‘There's a low in the middle of it, so the breeze is all over the place not generating any real sea state, when the wind goes into the south-east we will get some sea but not too much.

‘It's funny - yesterday the finish seemed quite close - now it feels a very long way away.

KEY DATA DAY 69 0710 GMT:

Distance ahead: 698 miles

Time ahead: 2 days 6 hours (representing 56.23% of time remaining) calculated using the time it took for Joyon to get to the same Distance to Finish as Ellen's current position

Lat/Long: 43 33 N / 020 26 W (400 miles NNE Azores / 495 miles W Cape Finisterre)

Average Boat speed: 13.78 knots (heading NE by E)

True Wind speed: 23.6 knots (direction N)

Sea temperature: 13.7 degrees C

Distance sailed so far: 26,545 miles at an average speed of 16.0 knots

(data communicated by Thrane MiniC via BT Business Broadband)

ETA:

Earliest: Monday 1200-2000GMT

Average: Monday 2000GMT to Tuesday 1200 GMT

Latest: 1200GMT Tuesday to Wednesday 1200 GMT
Update based on data recorded 0710 GMT.

Check www.teamellen.com for the latest data updated hourly