When Ross finally tacked onto his first real logo-high wave of the day with power in the sail, I thought to myself its game on, bring it on! Thirty seconds later I heard the crunch of his mast snapping clean in two as he was hurled around in the white water. Ten minutes later it was hammering down with rain and I was running for cover.
Another smug text from Blacky came through to see how we were doing. By 3 p.m. we’d waited long enough, the wind seemed to have deserted us but we had heard that Blacky and the local crew were sailing at Marazion. So our first day was fruitless and the latest forecast update was for even less wind for the following morning.
I was starting to wonder if I should have stumped-up £800 for a ticket to Cape Verde to join Katchadourian and Pritchard, but the plan was to stick to the hand we had been dealt and so, with the real peak of the swell due to hit overnight, we booked into the local Premier Inn and held our ground.