day 3 Sun 12th june

Hand steering at night, full survival suit on , wet and cold.

Mulled over the problem of the steering all night and finally decided to dive over the side and put the rudder blades up and tie them in place so that the boat was being steered only by the rudder cases and wing. This is possible when under motor but has yet to be tried under sail. Do not expect to be able to tack but may alleviate steering load. As soon as it was daylight I went over the side and with the boat dead in the water was able to accomplish the job reasonably quickly though the swell made the whole endeavour dangerous and tricky. The Port tiller arm had broken off during the night as well.

Instant success, the steering became easier and we started to scoot along. I then assembled glass and epoxy and repaired and reinforced the port tiller arm. I used carbon fibre and glass tape and the job went well so decided to continue to steer from the starboard side to give it all a chance to cure and strengthen. "Zen" was steering with just a length of bungee cord to counteract the pull of the helm

At around 17.00hrs I reconnected the self steering and away we went at speeds between 5 and 10 knots.