Arrived in Cascais near Lisbon yesterday evening after an interesting day's sail.

We started fantastically with a dramatic unfurling of our big red Twistle sail right on the start line and shot off like a rocket. With 20 knots of wind directly behind us we cruised away from the fleet at a steady 7-8 knots. The wind was perfect for us and allowed us to keep dead to our required course.

The sun was out and apart from a bit of atlantic swell we sailed fantastically for 6 hours. We were finally overtaken by a couple of the larger yachts but were still ahead of most. Thats when things changed a bit!

We'd been told earlier by the organisers that when we rounded a headland near the finish the wind could increase dramatically by up to 2 forces. This didn't seem like it would present too many problems as the wind was between 15 and 20 knots but we reefed the Twistle early in anticipation.

As we continued south the winds grew steadily until one of the leaders a few miles ahead reported back winds gusting 50 knots and bad storm conditions. We decided to pack away the Twistle and set up a fully reefed mainsail.

This is where the fun began! We were very exposed at the time and were overpressed with even a reefed mainsail so we decided to go bare poles and motor the 1/2 hour until around the corner and out of the wind.

With winds of over 35 knots we struggled to get the main down. The boat was being bashed around and we were on deck trying to get a sail tie around the dropped mainsail to stop it flogging around in the wind.

It was pretty hairy stuff despite being hanked on and in full life jackets. The sea was covering us and the boat with heavy spray whilst the wind made it very difficult to pull down and secure the sail.

After Amanda and I finally managed to cast a sail tie over and secure the mainsail I had to go up front again to get the Twistle sail down as it hadn't furled properly in the strong wind and was flapping around quite violently. This was really difficult to control as it came down as it was flogging back and forth and I could hardly grip it. After a few minutes struggle and being thrown about it was down on deck and secured. My arms ached and I could hardly clench my fists they were so fatigued.

With all sails down we returned to our course and set off around the headland. Ironically, 10 minutes after clearing it the wind dropped to almost nothing!

We set our sails again and slowly sailed the last few miles until the wind died completely and we said 'buggrit' and motored to the finish line.

Hopes of a good finish had faded and we lost about 3 places in the struggle to get our sails sorted. At least we learnt a few things. Our maximum wind was between force 8 and 9 - very nasty. The boat and we made it through unscatched, save for a few skinned knees, bruises, aching limbs and an impromptu soaking.

Needles to say, we all had a well deserved drink in the evening after mooring up.