We knew it was going to be a bad sched and the sweepstake was running from as high as 30 to a mere 7, so a 3 hour loss of 14.8nm to the leader was nearly the middle of the spread.  No gear broken, no sails destroyed, no whales speared, just some clouds. 

It looks like the bulk of the fleet slipped through relatively unhindered and our ‘aft leverage’, as it has become known, put us right in the firing line of 60 mile wide patch of rain squalls.  You can dodge and weave round the individual cells but you still roll the dice anytime you tangle with clouds.

I guess in some ways we have been lucky not to be further behind at this point.  Most of the fleet got caught napping at Fernando which allowed us to close up and again as the whole fleet compressed in the ridge, but it’s been an increasingly frustrating week.  Anything we do well produces a sched with at best no loss and any small mistakes or misfortunes are punished hard.  What we all wouldn’t do right now for a 1000kgs of lead in the bulb.

The boys have been awesome, keeping really positive and hoping that the latter half of the race will provide a few more tactical opportunities than a 3000 mile starboard reach.  Anyway,  I just thought I would let you know that we are not injured or damaged we just had a bad sched.

Ian Moore - navigator