The long North Atlantic slog North For Brian Thompson

Brian Says in his daily message. ““It’s a long slog up the tropical North Atlantic against the NE Trades. I am well heeled over with wave after wave hitting the boat. Down below it’s a matter of holding on, not to get thrown against the unforgiving carbon hull. The spray is flying across the deck every 5 seconds as the boat pitches into the next wave. I am attempting to take it easy to the finish with my one leaking ram and my repaired bow structure, so it’s not the conditions I would ask for! But it is very normal for this part of the ocean – and what makes going the other way such fun! I am about half way through this section so there are another three days of this upwind sailing to go, until I am near the latitude of the Canary Islands, and just north of the latitude of Bahrain. Then there will be a high pressure to pass before reaching the westerly winds of the temperate North Atlantic, which should take me past the Azores and to Les Sables. Yesterday I had a failure of the rope purchase that held the J3 headsail down to the deck. The rope just parted after 24,000 miles and the sail flew backwards and wrapped itself around the leeward shrouds which attach to the end of the outriggers. I was asleep at the time and it was pitch dark. I woke up because something felt wrong, and I shone a torch at the bow and there was no sail. There it was, gone! I immediately saw where the sail had ended up, and I bore away and tried to pull the sail out of its tangle around the lower shroud, but it would not budge. I then lowered the halyard and got as much sail on deck as possible and tied it off, to stop it wrapping it further.
Yesterday I had numerous close encounters with large white fishing boats, I went by seven of them, each of them similarly sized and white. They must have been working together but what kind of fishing they were doing I have no idea, as they had no stern reels for putting out nets or lines. They did not appear to be doing any fishing, very odd. Sam had warned me about them, and in turn I let Dee know about them. Otherwise there are no vessels at all. I noticed that something very strange happened to the sun, it was behind me and to the south! For 70 days I had been used to the sun always to my north and for it to be travelling from right to left through the day. Now, back in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun travels from left to right through the day, quite disconcerting at first.”