Another frustrating 24 hrs here, stuck in light shifting airs for most of the night. At times it has felt like we have been going backwards. Today is much better, we have had a series of sail changes but are flying at last! Current SOG is 8.1 kts – it will be interesting to see how long the wind holds. There are lots of squalls around but we have managed to avoid most of them so far. We still have not engineered a solution to the broken pole fitting however Richard is working on it. Only other damage to report is a badly bent guardrail to port – damaged when the cruising chute went in the water late yesterday.

Overall our tactics have been to head west rather than south on the basis that the grib charts are suggesting the same wind in each direction but the distance overall will be less. We still believe this to be right however the rate to which we have been slipping to the back of the fleet is disappointing. We maybe one of the northern most boats right now but hard to tell with the data available on board.

We are in good spirits but tired, it has been a tough start with the constant sail changes exhausting. As of this afternoon we have adjusted our shift roster to ensure we all get some quality sleep. Paul, Richard and Louis are going to adopt a four hours on, eight hours off shift with BEC floating across all.