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Atlantic Crossing

knot, had slipped! We were all starting to have bruises everywhere.

It was getting harder and harder to cook, and it had been a strong chal-
lenge for me to keep an omelet in the pan before it got hard. For the even-
ing, we continued with the dried food. Night was falling more and more
suddenly, and dried food was much faster to prepare. We were eating di-
rectly in the bags, ending with a notation of the dishes we had chosen. We
were gaining ground on Lubillu III, it was now only 27 miles away, we were
looking for its lights at night and shouted : "Lubillu, where are you?" We
are coming "

Unfortunately in the night, early on
December 8, the jib slammed once too
often, I heard a big bang, and I real-
ised that the sail was flying freely
ahead of the boat, indicating the route
to follow. And no, this time it was not
a shackle: I saw in the light of a torch
that the clew point was hanging des-
Broken clew Point
perately at the end of the pole. Gilbert
suddenly came out of his berth and joined me in the cockpit while I rolled
the jib, and went on the foredeck to wrap the sail with ropes to prevent it
unrolling.
We only had now the mainsail, so our speed dropped. We hoisted the
storm jib upon the wrapped jib, and despite its small size, it gave us a little
speed and stability. The windvane accommodated the situation very well.
The wind was now settled at 25 knots and going up to 30 in gusts. I saw on
the grib files that we would have an area of even stronger winds and sea in
front of us, and that we could round this area by going South. We decided
to head to 250. The following night, a surge filled the cockpit during Chris-
tine's shift. It was now full moon, the nights were very clear.
On the 9th we made our second bale of rubbish. Gilbert and I went to the
foredeck to lower the torn jib and bring it into the cabin, which was then
very crowded. In addition to the broken clew point, there were several fa-
tigue tears along the fall. We did some research in our on-board literature,

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