A day in paradise, a day in hell

The first few days of the race, once out of Cook Strait, have been
relatively easy sailing, reaching then downwind in moderate seas clocking
good mileage every poll, we were happy with our choice of heading further
south at the beginning which paid very well as now we have a lead of over
70 miles over Phesheya, our direct peer with an identical boat (although I
undertand they had an issue with a spinnaker). The leaderboard keeps
getting now reshuffled, each with their own idea of how to best deal with
what looks like up to a week of head winds.

When the front came through yesterday the wind went from north westerly
(good) to south easterly (bad) and kept increasing, today we had anything
from 30 to 45 knots of wind in a deteriorating sea state, the port pilot
started to struggle until it would just steer an erratic course with
several involutary tacks which allowed for some rather loud swearing from
my part, from a distance you may well have thought we are sponsored by
French Connection UK, or close anagram thereof.

We now switched to the starboard pilot, reset the all settings and we seem
to be doing a little better although knowing we have endless miles ahead
of this bashing is not exactly making us sing songs of joy, there will be
no real respite for at least 48 hours when at least the wind is due to
calm down a bit.

There's not much we can do and everyone has the same to deal with, so
let's just grin and bear till things will hopefullly improve, all we wish
for at the moment is to keep going and suffer no damage.