Vignettes From The Southern Ocean–Ellen E-mail: Another long(ish) e-mail from Ellen MacArthur (where does she find the time?) on life in the Southern Ocean. Amazingly, she continues to find beauty and inspiration, despite appalling fatigue and difficult sailing conditions:

“Well, things have been quite tough over the last few days… We’re in a very unstable wind situation, and poor B&Q has been stopping and starting like there’s no tomorrow. The sky is blue mainly, but there are many clouds – some angry, some not – which come in towards us like angry demons to attack us with their angry icy gusts. Yesterday we had a few pearlers where the wind reached over 38 knots sustaining 35 [knots] for 40 minutes… The sky went black, and the sea a silky grey as the hail stones poured down from the heavens to batter the waters surface. B&Q was flying, surfing into the high 20’s, sailing deep, down the waves, on the limit – but thankfully not over. I made the most of the second such storm to collect some spare water – so went forward to the mast to hold the bucket under the sail. The water fell – just above freezing temperature – as it melted off the sail. As I watched the storm pass over us my skin stung as the hefty hailstones banged into me, they clattered off the deck so they must have been hitting hard – I guess they’ve fallen a long way! I saved 2 litres of drinking water then washed some thermals with the rest – though little smells now as it’s so cold but that will all change when things warm up! Last night we had wind all over the place – and strength from 5 knots to 38 knots. We felt as if we were weaving in and out of the wind – somehow evading it… Frustrating and exhausting with so many sail changes [11 in 24 hours]. I managed a few hours of troubled sleep – waking each time to the ear-piercing alarm telling me once again the wind had risen. I dragged myself off the floor where I was huddled in my oilskins under a fleece blanket – and looked to the sky to see yet another demon black cloud. Though the night was hard and exhausting, there was a really beautiful aspect – sunset was magnificent with the orange glow lighting up the waves, and the birds around us lit up by this ‘warmth’ of light. It’s amazing to see the darkest clouds blacken the sky but the boat before it glowing as before a winter’s fire. Just stunning. Now I can see the sky at night I realise that the dusk just runs in to night, and it never really gets dark at night. In fact, there is always that golden glow on the horizon – dusk melting into dawn then bringing the new day. At least the nights are short. This morning things are a little more stable and the decision is which sails to put up. I’m my own worst enemy in these situations, always wanting B&Q to be sailing as well as she possibly can be – that’s hard in the squally conditions though – hard when the wind speeds are very hard to predict. But I made myself useful, telling myself to give it an hour or so… Putting safety on the tramp lashings, bailing out the three buckets full of water from the windward float. I tried to seal it better this time with silicone. It seems just yesterday I was in there bailing out a few buckets. It’s a bizarre feeling sitting with your head poking out of the float – it’s narrow, but about as deep as I am tall – so when the hatch is out you can stand on the hull – I felt like a character out of wacky races, my little head poking out of such a huge graceful shape. I smiled anyway but I guess being out here alone kind of does that to you!

ellen xx”

She’s more than 60 hours ahead of Joyon’s record. But look what it’s doing to her hand…



“Damn, I’ve got about 2 hours of peeling to do tonight…”