December 23rd

Hi All
 
Worked all night last night to get the repair finished, building additions to the beam going forwards with more floorboards and a final lamination of carbon cloth and epoxy resin. This will hold the tank lid down to the repaired longitudinal to create an I beam to take the loads from the floor of the boat.
 
I was working as fast as possible as I knew a big low was coming at 35 knots from behind. I had to get the lamination cured before the boat started wracking and slamming in the waves, as any movement would ruin the lamination. In the end I was sitting in the forepeak at dawn with a gas stove in each hand, heating each side of the repair to make the epoxy go off more quickly, feeling the boat start to move in the increased sea state from the 20 knots of wind that had already arrived.
 
Once the lamination was mostly cured, after 3 hours of holding the gas burners and trying to stay awake, I finally left the forepeak and collapsed onto a beanbag to sleep for 2 whole, fantastic hours. I have hardly slept for 3 days and was running on adrenaline and the fear of this Vendee Globe adventure ending, or being stranded in a storm with a broken boat. There were a lot of incentives to get it done, and sleep was low on the priorities.
 
For a few hours I sailed at 10 knots with just a triple reefed main as the wind increased to 30 knots. 12 hours after I had done the final lamination the epoxy was fully cured so I hoisted up the J4 sail on the babystay and saw the boatspeed climb into the high teens for the first time in 3 days.
 
The waves and wind were from the side of the boat as the wind was northerly, so I could not remove all the slamming, and I spent a lot of time with my head in the ballast tank, looking for any movement and also doing some final improvements to the repair. So far, so good, the repair seems to be holding. There is a lot of material there, as you can see from the before and after pictures, and I hope that is enough to get me to the finish.
 
Now it's just dawn at 1850 GMT and I am awaiting the arrival of a cold front, the wind has already hit 50 knots a couple of times and is regularly over 40 knots. I am on the 4th reef and the J4, which might look like ridiculously small sails on the dock, but are more than big enough out here. The seastate will get worse for a time after the front and this will be another test of the repairs.
 
It’s good to be racing and sailing again. This morning I finally looked at the positions of the other boats and was fairly happy with where I was in the fleet, still in 10th place and still ahead of Aviva and Akenas, even though they had caught up 300 miles. In terms of latitude I was in a fairly good position as well. Not so far from Roxy and Safran, so there are realistic targets to aim for to try to move up the fleet. But for now, still monitoring the repair and not going to go 100% yet.
 
Big thanks to the excellent advice from both Tom Faire in New Zealand, and Rob Feloy from Devon, another expert boatbuilder and now yacht surveyor, who has also helped me on plenty of other projects in the past. It was great to be able to talk to you both on the phone to do the best possible job with the materials to hand, it was very much a team effort. Thanks to Andy Dore and Liz Wardley for making up all the spares and to Andy for more boatbuilding tips, I had everything I needed. I was a little dubious about taking a battery powered jigsaw on the race, but am mighty pleased I have it on board now!
 
Water temp 9.7 degrees at 4830 S 133 30E.
 
Brian

Ps: its Christmas Eve here local time, so Happy Christmas!