She’s pushed out to a lead of 3 days and 10 hours (almost 700 miles), with just 1,714 miles left. Normally, that would be Game Over, barring a major breakdown. But the North Atlantic weather gods are not ready to let Ellen rest easy yet. They’ve thrown up one of the strangest weather patterns ever seen, and the prime feature is a massive, light wind, high pressure system that will be sitting directly between Ellen and the finish. See latest report here, and latest weather forecast here. Here’s what Ellen has to say about it all:
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the high… I’m sitting here and every single report that’s coming in its moving – the four different models this morning, all say different things. The only thing I hope really doesn’t happen is that we end up finishing with 35 knots upwind and, to be honest, I think that’s the most likely scenario. I’m not trying to be negative, it’s going to be really, really bad at the end if that’s what happened. It will be ‘boat-breaking’ scenario…
My hands are so hard and so tight and so rotten…they look quite disgusting! There is white rot underneath all my fingernails, I can chew bits of the skin off without feeling a thing, it’s that hard and that knackered. Not very beautiful…”
No, it’s not. But skin is very nutricious…
Snack, Anyone?: If this is what they looked like at Cape Horn, I’m not sure we want to see an update…
The Earthist Chronicles 