AZ(AB) 91 - The only mishap that occurred

The only mishap that occurred was when at the height of the gale a rogue wave swept up behind us, hitting us in the back and propelling us across the cockpit. We were only saved by our safety harness's from a watery grave and the yacht becoming a Marie Celeste. Throughout the gale we took it in turns to hand steer and about midday on the 7th, the sky started to clear, the barometer began to rise, and we were able to raise a small triple reefed mainsail and make some progress westward.

George Mark 2 was working quite well and while he made a valiant attempt at steering, like lizards we lay in the sun drying out. The state of ones mind after a blow is fascinating, with simple pleasures like a shave, cup of tea, or even a hot meal seeming to be one of the great luxuries of life. By midnight we had all the sail back up and on our way again with just 577 miles to go to Ponta Delgada .

A gentle South Westerly breeze blew all night and we took it in turns to get some deep (level 4) sleep. The barometer had risen to 1020 millibars and the seas had settled down to a regular swell. Feeling that all this was too good to be true, that morning, I apprehensively tuned in a 48 hour prognosis weather fax. We received a good picture from Rota in Spain , showing the tightly packed isobars of the gale, on its way to Britain , and no more nasties for us.

The afternoon was glorious, even better for the forecast, light winds with little wavelets, we were still making 4.6 knots through the water and to crown it all about 20 dolphins came to play around the bows sgueaking very loudly . The only malfunction that occurred during the gale, was the electronic log, which had given up the ghost. The impeller can be retracted from within the hull, so the plan was to withdraw it and check that it was still working, easier said than done with 3000 metres of water between us and the sealed. I had a horrible vision of a great fountain of water shooting up and me having to do the little Dutch boy trick of sticking my finger in the hole, to prevent the boat filling with water and descending to the deep. Well it did all go well, we took in very little water and managed to fix the log.