Ellen toughs it out through the high

by Offshore Challenges on 5 Feb 2005 Day 69 and Ellen MacArthur reported from B&Q last night GMT: ‘The breeze has fallen out. We we're going okay, we're not anymore.'

‘The pilot’s just gone off twice, never a good time at the beginning of a 12 hour stretch of no wind. We're expecting nothing for the next 12 hours.

'It really is light. Light variable, 4-7 knots, you can sail with 4-7 knots, but I just can't rest, I can't rest with the pilot going off. I deal with not going anywhere but I can't deal with the alarm going off all the time. With my boat speed I can't steer anymore.'

Early morning call:

‘Very stressful last night, very stressful. About six hours of absolute hell, where we would have 4 knots of breeze and be able to sail, and then the breeze would just sit for 45 minutes, just spinning round and round and round and round.

‘I furled the genoa and then just sat and watched it for 45 minutes because it was pointless trying to sail. I could see it was just going round and round and round. It stabilised for about 20 minutes in one direction at about 3.5 knots so we could just about get moving and then it suddenly decided it was going to go through 360 degrees, but not just in a few seconds it would take it's time.

‘Basically, went through 360 four times, which is obviously quite hard to get sailing in. Finally stabilising after a few hours east south east and then I could see it coming back up into the north. It went west then north-west then north.

‘The bubble of high wasn't as high north as we thought but more south-west and we went right over the top of it which is why we lost the breeze so early. We're through, we're through the high bubble, we're going to have good light winds for a while and hopefully there's no second bubble at the same time, so it looks like we're okay.

‘Breeze should strengthen now slowly; it should just come in from the north and then strengthen its butt off basically! What is good is that the routing software wasn't showing that we were going to get very far north.

'We are now quite a long way north and my cog is 0 [north]. So as long as the breeze stays where it is I'm gaining to the north. I'm still able to gain to the north which is fantastic.

‘When the breeze kicks in we're going to keep heading north. I think we're going to clear Finisterre which is good. I got some rest it was pretty hard the alarms going off just all the time. I duct-taped the alarm up because it was so noisy, I just couldn't bear to hear it anymore.

‘I didn't lose it once last night, not even for a second, even in six hours of complete nightmare. I didn't lose it once. What makes it hard is when you imagine one thing to happen and then something very different happens - that's quite stressful.

‘You don't know where you are with it, you don't know what's going on, if you're told that you're not going to have any wind for twelve hours it's not very comforting, but I never lost it. Yet the night before I couldn't deal with anything, nothing and it's amazing what that sleep difference makes.

'Three hours yesterday and a few slices during the night. Basically, as soon as the winds stabilise I try and sleep it's a weird mindset.

‘Last night I actually felt hungry, which is a miracle, so around 3.00am I made my dinner. Your objective you think is to sleep whilst the breeze is stable but you have got to eat as well.

'I just completely burnt my mouth as I was trying to shovel my food down so fast so I had a chance to sleep even for five minutes.

‘It's amazing just like basic survival, you do what you've got to do to survive, it's weird. So much of this trip has reflected this basic instinct and basic survival - it's amazing even down to what you can eat and what you can digest.

'The only thing I remotely want to eat is milk products. I've nearly run out of powered milk because I've got through all the powered milk in my tea and on my breakfast cereal. I don’t know if it's my body wanting fat because I've had no fat in my diet for the last months.

'Mid-morning call [speaking about approach to Cape Finisterre]:

‘It maybe 25-30 knots gusting 40 which is completely different to what we had before. I think it's going to be staysail which makes me very happy. The average wind speeds maybe in the high 20's and that is okay - it's better than I thought and that's really, really comforting because I was very, very worried.

‘A strong Northerly down there is going to be serious with a rough sea state. When I look at the routing that I ran yesterday, it had breeze in Finisterre and we basically go onto starboard.
It had the wind speed building 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19 and then it had 17 knots for the finish and it's got a True Wind Angle at this point of 70, 80, 90 degrees, so quite good.

‘Yesterday a ship passed down my portside - I was on port tack sailing with genoa - and no blip no nothing I didn't see anything. That was quite unnerving really. Tacking off Finisterre and then heading straight up is going to be straight up through the shipping route which is not going to be fun.

'It should slowly build now, to be honest, but I had 8 knots of breeze an hour ago and now it's dropped again.

Key Data Day 68 1510 GMT:

Distance ahead: 918 miles

Time ahead: 2 days 11 hours [representing 52.68% 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: 42 22 N / 024 11 W (280 miles N Azores / 735 miles W Vigo, Portugal)

Average Boat speed: 9.43 knots (heading NNE)

True Wind speed: 8.5 knots (direction NW by N)

Distance sailed so far: 26,358 miles at an average speed of 16.1 knots

(data communicated by Thrane MiniC via BT Business Broadband)

Update based on data recorded 1510 GMT.

Go to http://www.teamellen.com for the latest data updated hourly