Thought to walk through a day in the life, which begins at 2:45 am for me as I have the night watch of 3 to 5 am each morning. Spending 2 hours in a 6 by 9 cockpit surrounded by clear plastic windows you would think what a great view of the stars. Well for the past 4 days it has been mostly cloudy during the day and completely cloud coverage a night. As you try to look around you at the horizon, you can spot various shades of grey (not quite 50). The darkest areas are either squalls (intense storms with winds we've seen up to 27 knots)some with rain but no thunder or lighting yet. After sleeping 3 to 3 1/2 hours my day starts around 8:30 with an Espresso (Nespresso onboard and many flavors of cafe). Breakfast has been either cereal on your own or someone makes pancakes, french toast or eggs for everyone. Then a shower (every other day) morning chores include prepare lunch, make some bread, clean the salon and out side patio, morning walk around the boat to look for potential problems, set fishing lines, check email, read weather report, and morning radio call to all boats noting their position. I have my second watch from 12:30 to 3 pm, and then another at 7 to 9pm.. I' finally able to slow down enough to read a book...The Black Swan - thank-you Dr. J. for the book - this caught my eye - You can not ignore self-delusion. The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.

On a different note....

we have lost one of our rudders at about 6 am our time- I know, very clumsy of us. Thankfully, Cats have two rudders and the remaining one is still operational and has been working all day. It does mean that it is v difficult for us to sail, but, we can motor sail as we are doing right now. Today the weather has been much better than forecast, but, there is still the threat of squalls until tomorrow, so we are taking it very easy. We have not been able to dive the remaining rudder to see if it is damaged, but, there s no sign of damage and it seems to be good. We will take a closer look when the seas get more stable.

I should also mention that the Genoa has a tear (about 1 meter long) and we currently have it partially furled to protect the tear. We have brought down the Mainsail and are motoring.

Spirit is good, and we are laying out our options, we have a drogue that we can deploy to help steer and steady the boat (essentially counter steer/counter balance), we will mend the sail, we have other sails, we have plenty of fuel, a lot of food and water. Tomorrow will be a busy day of calls trying to find out what is feasible or not.

So, we are managing, no need to worry.

Our progress will no doubt be impacted and we will let you know how our efforts progress. Average speed hor VMG has dropped from 7.7 to 5 ish.