Vigo to Plymouth single-handed

“I am neither happy nor sad, neither really tense nor really relaxed. Perhaps that is the way it is when a man gazes at the stars, asking himself questions he is not mature enough to answer. So one day he is happy, the next a bit sad without knowing why. It is a little like the horizon: for all your distinctly seeing sky and sea come together on the same line, for all your constantly making for it, the horizon stays at the same distance, right at hand and out of reach. Yet deep down you know that the way covered is all that counts.” -Bernard Moitessier 

A month earlier - Plymouth

The Western end of the Plymouth breakwater marks the end of the 610-mile-long Fastnet Race. Perched on the pulpit of a 40 ton, 72 foot steel yacht after what has been mostly a fair-weather race, I couldn't help wondering how the 30ft Auriga will cope with the autumn Biscay weather. Giulia reported that Auriga was seaworthy if wet, while my experience with the new yacht was thus far limited to a few windless hours in the Med.
The last night of the race was uneventful. Someone asked me what I had in mind for my next sailing adventure. I replied that I might cross the Biscay single-handed. I tried to sound convinced.

Repairing the tiller pilot socket

One pieces of equipment that makes sailing the boat easier is the tiller pilot. On Auriga, it is inserted into a socket glued into the reinforced wooden lid of the starboard cockpit locker, and attaches to a pin on the tiller via a plastic end cap. Shortly before the single-handed Biscay crossing it became apparent that the wood around the socket was rotten and hardly up to the job - a consequence of pressure-fitting the socket directly into the wood and the non-slip layer trapping any moisture inside it. The socket pulled out easily, and cutting away the non-slip revealed the damaged area of approx. 10cm long, 4cm wide and 1-2cm deep. The moisture had predominantly spread along the fibers.

Affected area