Ellen MACARTHUR's catamaran Kingfisher 2 passed Cape Finistere after a rough night in the North Atlantic on its epic non-stop round-the-world Jules Verne record attempt.

Winds average 30 knots from the north east pushing Kingfisher 2 to sail slightly further west but still averaging 19.87 knots.

In her latest communication from the catamaran Ellen said: "Its been a full-on 24 hours since we started. We saw 60 knots of wind during yesterday, and some wild seas. But to make use of this weather window, we did the right thing to leave, even though sailing in these extreme conditions has not been that great."

She continued: "The wind off of Portugal is definitely going to shut down soon, but hopefully we'll have pushed past into the trade winds before it does.

"The watch system is working well - when the guys are not on deck they are just crashed out everywhere. If I go on deck to speak to the helmsman I am climbing over bodies still in their oilskins. On deck the spray is just constant - the helmsman is constantly ducking to avoid the worst of it .

"It's pretty cold and has been really quite violent onboard since the start. But the food is good and everyone is eating properly apart from myself, Bruno and Benoit. We all caught some kind of bug during our very short pit stop in Plymouth and this hasn't made the last wet and cold 24 hours very easy!

"When we passed Cape Finistere in the night the seas were very confused coming from the north west and the north but the sea conditions are steadying now, with the wind down to about 30 knots.

"We are about 180 miles offshore from the Portuguese coast west of Sanxenxo (port on the Spanish coast just north of Vigo).

"We have not yet passed the sunken oil tanker Prestige - it is about 40 miles south east of us - but we should pass it about 50 miles to the west.

"We will make a final gybe towards the trade winds in the south later today. The breeze will run out soon so we are pushing south as fast as we can."

Life on board should improve considerably for the 14 crew by the weekend as Kingfisher 2 aims to hook into the Trade Winds.

"The watch system on board is a four hours off-watch, four hours on-stand-by and four hours on-watch with a crew of four in each system. Guillermo Altadill, Neal McDonald and Herv Jan are the three watch leaders on board - both Ellen and Andrew Preece are outside of the watch system to allow them to focus on their specific roles on board as navigator and media communications respectively.