It was not the usual cheerful Smon that phoned this morning. Having spent 2 hours on the watermaker and was still getting no water, he was rather fed up. The rudder has been banging in the rough seas though not enough to keep him awake. Having rowed up until 11.30pm he went to take his usual 2 hour sleep but woke up 6 hours later, despite the mattress being half way up the side of the boat. That is what you called tired !

The water-maker aside, the rudder is now causing the most concern. The constant  bashing that it is getting has made the lines fray and they are just days away from snapping altogether. Simon has lost enough weight to get enough of his body out through the rear hatch to get some new rope on the spare fixings on the rudder (what a good idea they were) but that will just stop excess movement. It is too thick for control lines. Having done one repair already, Simon does not have any more line to replace them. He is going to cannabalise the lanyards on his buckets and front hatch to replace what he can. Somehow he has to get new lines from the back of the boat to the cockpit which is not going to be easy.

He has also had to replace the wheels on his rowing seat and the electric bilge pump has given up. Fortunately the hand bilge pump is very effective (thanks Neil). 

The time spent on repairs obviously detract from rowing, hence the slight drop in performance in the last couple of days.

With still more than half way to go, the question is will the boat mechanics hold together for the rest of the trip ?

Stop press: 10 minutes after the phone call, the water-maker started working again.