CONNECT WITH BEN:
Seven days after his restart off Start Point Ben is approximately 850 nm along the solo non-stop track round Britain and Ireland - estimated as being a total of 1,850 nm long.
So a long way to go still but good progress has been made and with good fortune and fair winds the course may be completed inside 16 days. Ben has food and water for 20 days.
The run up the southern part of the North Sea was extremely wearing with little chance of sleep having so many ships, platforms and sandbanks to avoid.
The past 48 hours trying to get north of the Shetland Isles have been plagued by light shifty breeze petering away to nothing for hours so hard gained miles evaporate as Mini Minx drifts backwards on the tide. Nothing to do but wait for the breeze, tidy up, get some kip, and listen to the cricket.
Ben says that surprisingly the only wildlife, apart from birds, that he has seen are a couple of dolphins yesterday who soon lost interest in him when they realised his boat was not going very fast through the oily calm sea.
Views of the Shetlands from the sea have been amazing but all that is past as they slowly disappear behind Ben tonight as Mini Minx now picks up speed on the freshening breeze heading into the sunset towards the Hebrides and then on to the West Coast of Ireland.
The main task tonight before dark is to stow all the gear securely below, get a couple of hot meals inside himself, batten down the hatches, reef the mainsail and make ready for strong North-Easterly winds that will increase to 30 - 35 knots by tomorrow morning and may reach 40 knots locally during the day. However after a very wet and wild day on Saturday the forecast gives clearer weather after that and continuing, but moderate, North-Easterlies helping push Ben on his way.
Not surprisingly, not everything is going according to plan. A somewhat serious setback that manifested itself 48 hours ago, is the starting mechanism on the portable petrol generator, which is used to top up the batteries that run all the instruments and autohelm, has broken.
Ben has been trying to fix this for the past couple of days but to no avail, meaning he is now solely reliant on the power that the two flexible Solar Panels can produce to top up the batteries; but it is not enough for the amount of power needed on a normal daily basis.
This means that what was already a substantial challenge has just got harder. The only way to conserve enough battery power for essential equipment and bursts of autopilot use when absolutely necessary, is for Ben to hand steer for long hours at a time.
This evening Ben was frustrated by this mechanical setback but upbeat and determined to complete this challenge 'non-stop'.