Thank you for your warm wishes and hearty breaths. It appears to have done the trick as I am making decent progress given the conditions and am currently 60 miles ahead of my where my routing suggested I would be. Yesterday's frustration appears in retrospect to have been rather mellow dramatic but I feared that I would be imprisoned forever in a shaking and shivering, brain rattling "calm"! Last night put it all into perspective as I glided over a now calm sea under a clea

I'm stuck! Just as yesterday I enjoyed an unexpected good run with ideal conditions to make miles northwards, now the weather files have turned against me and I have a lot less wind than expected. I had agonized for days about whether finding a way east early (but that put in even more squarely in the path of over 40 knots of wind, to be avoided) or make gains northwards with an escape route to the east later. Sadly it looks like I am going to struggle for a few days here w

I have been pretty busy these last couple of days dealing with problems in my little corner of the world and now as I take up the keyboard again it's hard to know where to start. Firstly, congratulations to Armel and Alex for an incredible race. They have been pushing and trying to out fox each other in a personal grudge match since they made a break for it South Atlantic on the way down. Two of the fastest boats in the fleet helmed by two of the most experienced skippers (

Cape Horn! After 66 days, 16 hours and 14 minutes of racing, Foresight Natural Energy passed Cape Horn. Having already been around the world twice, it was not an entirely new experience for Conrad however this was the first time solo. After a tough Pacific crossing, it was a great relief « After my misadventures in the Southern Ocean I'm disappointed I can't push as hard and be as competitive as I would like but but it puts things in perspective. I was a hair's breadth away

C'est toujours un moment important quand on entre dans les latitudes entre 40° et 50° sud, plus communément appelée " les 40e rugissants". Quand on descend l'Atlantique, ça marque le début du grand sud, la longue houle, les journées dans le gris et l'arrivée des vents violents (rugissants) d'où le nom! Lorsqu'on entre dans cette zone au retour, ça signifie que l'on échappe enfin à tout ça, que les conditions devraient se calmer nous donnant l'opportunité de détendre un peu no

Entering the "Roaring Forties", the band of latitude between 40 and 50 degrees south, is always a great moment. When going down the south atlantic it means the beginning of the south, the long swells, the grey days and the start of the strong winds that roar, hence the name. Entering this band going back up again means an escape from all that and the promise of calmer days and the opportunity to untangle the nerves that were wound tight by weeks of stress. Even now at 48 de

Northwards! After rounding Isla de los Estados, the South American Sicily off the tip of the peninsula, I finally turned left for real and headed due north under my Code 0 foresail. A beautiful day that had me searching for my sunglasses after weeks of grey. I really enjoyed sailing quietly on a perfectly flat sea in the lee of the islands, a welcome change after the constant surfing and banging and crashing. The tranquility didn't last long however as dark clouds rolled i

Troisième fois au Cap Horn et celle-ci en solitaire! C'est un sentiment génial que d'avoir passé le dernier point le plus important du parcours. Maintenant je vais pouvoir me focaliser sur ma trajectoire vers le Nord au lieu du marathon vers l'Est qui caractérise les mers du Sud. Dans un endroit si isolé, c'était vraiment étrange d'être sur le pont et de voir émerger de la brume un énorme trimaran. J'ai vu apparaitre IDEC Sport au loin, le trimaran de 100 pieds qui avait quit

Third time around and solo! It feels amazing to be finally around the last major landmark on the course and now focus on getting as much north into my route as possible instead of the constant run to the east and defines the marathon in the south. In such a lonely point on the planet it was strange to be standing on deck and then see the dark shape of a huge trimaran emerge from the mists. It was Idec Sport, a massive 100 foot trimaran that left France on December 16th 2016

George Orwell's dystopian sci-fi novel, 1984, was famous for many things. Flying helicopter cars, centralized authoritarian governments and projections about excessive drug use. He also coined the term "doublethink", the concept that you can hold two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time and believe them both to be true. I'm feeling a little doublethink coming on at the moment. One the one hand I cannot wait to pass Cape Horn for the third time and head northwar