As our distance to the Azores keeps decreasing, we cannot help wondering whether our bodged repair on the mast will hold. Last night at about 5-30 pm, the mast started to wobble with increasing violence while I was on watch. I heaved the boat to (sort of 'parking at sea') to stop us and make the boat more stable to look at the problem. With the building sea state and threat of some heavy weather last night which was already starting, Mark and I took a look at our first repair. The offcut of rope holding the shroud line to the deck had badly chafed and the rope stretched, so the side of the mast was no longer under tension, hence the vibration. One and a half hours later, absolutely drenched, we had replaced the makeshift repair with a new rope and we set off again. Within two hours, the sea and wind had picked up and we were now in nearly 30 knots of wind with a slightly vicious sea hitting us simultaneously from two directions. The mast wobble was diabolical, so I went out on deck in the dark and tightened a few shrouds up on the port side of the boat. The vibration ceased, we picked up speed, a little more sail out, and we were stable again. Peace for everyone. Clare has some great photos of the work being undertaken and these will get up on the web in Horta WHEN (!) we make it, our ETA being about the 16th June. Twelve hours later, we are still going strong at a good speed and in the right direction and all is OK, although the bend in the mast to port is somewhat interesting, a side effect of the temporary repair. We hope to correct this when the wind dies down in a couple of days. The rough sea has died down now and it is actually possible to cook today; last night's dinner resulted in half a pack of spaghetti down the back of the cooker, three mugs of milk waiting for their tea fill airborne in the galley, no soup, and finally ravioli sliding everywhere across the plate spilling tomato sauce everywhere. Worst thing for me was that I was Chef of the Day! I did not enjoy dinner last night! Anyway, we are all in good spirits, and despite the difficulties, are looking forward to arriving in Horta and heading straight for Peter's Sports Cafe Bar, a legendary hang out for transatlantic sailors for half a century, where we can pull up some sandbags and swing the lanterns with some great war stories, and several beers I suspect.