Ellen MacArthur: Allein um die Welt im Trimaran

30.11.2004

What is going on at the moment?
"Right now. we are just on top of a low pressure system between the Spanish and Portuguese coast. It's pretty windy right now, the wind is going to increase over the next half hour. It's been a pretty painfull night quite light winds, trying to get towards the low. We've been trying to get between the low and the high pressure but, unfortunately, we haven't been able to manage to do that as quickly as we wanted. So progress seems to be a little slower than we'd hoped. But the boat seems to be sailing ok, i've had a little sleep and right now boat speeds up above 15 knots so that's a good sign."

On the next big manoeuvre?
"We will be heading into a low and into high winds. Speeds should be over 40 knots. I've done a couple of sail changes this morning, I'm running with one reef and a gennaker, I'll change the gennaker in a couple of hours and be putting another reef in."

On how Ellen is feeling so far?
"I'm pretty tired and stressed, the sea state has been unstable so I'm pretty stressed all round. Right from the begginning every decision has been critical, each day counts. I'm pretty much neck and neck with Francis at the moment, but the trip down to the Equator could change that. I am looking forward to settling into life on board and I will be glad to see the back of the low in the next 24 hours"

1.12.2004

I'm nervous still, wind all over the place, just shifted through 120 degrees....it's just in the clouds, it shouldn't be like this. Breeze is due to die but, until I can get out of this cloud mass, its going to be like this...its gone from 8 knots to 25 knots....that makes it very hard onboard, and we are heading all over the place...not good for our positioning on the Canary Islands ahead of us. Right now our boat speed is just 8 knots and I'm heading for the islands... Can't leave the boat for 5 minutes without something happening...hope it's going to stablise soon...

Dry mouth...not eating properly yet...not totally got my head in to this...going to try and fix the leak on the fresh water tank to make myself feel happier! Problem is that with the wind shifting all the time, I don't want to get stuck down below, as I keep having to rush on deck to trim the sheets.