By 3am Monday morning we had got through the oil rigs of the northern part of the North sea. Passing them close last night is always a fascinating sight, mini towns on stilts, all lit up and with burning gas plumes being expelled from high towers.

By early morning we had crossed from Scotland to England as we continued to head south. We are over 100 miles away from the coast line, so the UK is currently invisible to us beyond the charts. Most of today the wind disappeared and we were becalmed in the sun, very frustrating times but we ended up pulling away from our nearest competitor who was visible most of the day.

As I type this it’s currently 2.45am, very dark with heavy rain, 15 knots of wind. Ollie is off watch and asleep.

With about 400 miles to go we are now in the final quarter of the race. We will pass the longitude of Manchester today - hello VMB Manchester team !!

The home straight we will be achieved when we turn West at Dover but still a way to go yet. As you may have seen the bad weather has taken its toll on the fleet with many retirements due to gear failure and some minor injuries. It’s always a balance to not push so hard things get broken, a marathon not a sprint for 1800 miles. "You got to be in it to win it" is never so true.

So final big push now to maximize our result. We are second in double handed, the leader has two professional sailors aboard who were part of the winning Volvo Ocean Race team - Dongfeng ( it’s sort of the equivalent of you racing your car against Lewis Hamilton to put in perspective) so we are very pleased with our performance so far.

I keep reflecting on the support from the entire team and partners to raise the Scope donations - remarkable achievement from so many people. Awesome job and makes you proud to work with such great people and organisation.

As we round Dover, look at those white cliffs, we realise that its the home straight and soon we will have dry land under our feet.
It's also the time where the crew are reminiscing about the race, retelling stories and maybe having a moment of reflection.

It's certainly been a race of 2 halves with Muckle Flugga as the half way point. 1st section was breezy, with big seas, strong winds and a few setbacks. 2nd half, light airs, wind-holes and again a few set backs. BUT as a crew we have pulled together when needed, kept each other going, laughed ALOT and certainly learned more about each other than we thought possible.

So as we face our final night watch, mobile phone signals are working, calls to loved ones made and excitement about that first beer felt. Personally, I can’t wait for a shower, beer and burger.

I would like to think that we will all walk away from this race, with a little more knowledge of ourselves, sailing and a few more friends. I certainly have. Highlights for me are:
Getting to know (typhoon) Alan, as I’ve nicknamed him.
Sitting on the rail with Henry and Heidi discussing favourite movies, pet hates and generally anything else.
The early morning Dolphin show and just being able to say I completed the Round Britain and Ireland Race.

With that I bid you farewell, see you in cowes for a beer. Jennifer OUT.

Some images received from EH01 as they approach the final leg of their journey;

It’s been a difficult few hours on Aparito but after much soul searching and number crunching we are going to have to announce our retirement.
Those of you who know a bit about Dr Elin Haf Davies will be aware she is the founder and CEO of Aparito, a start up tech company working to support remote patient monitoring using emerging technologies. Elin is passionate about everything she does and always takes the big challenges head on, whether it’s offshore racing or growing her company.
At this moment in time her company needs to take priority and we have finally come to terms with the fact it won’t be possible for us to finish this race in time to meet her business commitments. So we will be pulling in to Eastbourne to drop her off .

It’s gutting and we’ve had 24hrs of heartache trying to make the right decision.
We entered this race expecting to make up the numbers and have some fun. We had an ancient class 40 and a crew of 3.
After 10 days of racing, laughing and enduring the multiple personalities of the British summer weather it is incredible to be lying 4th in class and 6th line honours with only 50 miles to go.

Of course this has been a war of attrition but who would have thought old tubs would still be in it?

We are incredibly proud of what we’ve done.... so we won’t get an official result but as we said at the very beginning of this experience... there is a lot more to yacht racing than just the results. The Seven Star Round Britain and Ireland race has been spectacular. Thank you to RORC race committee and Congratulations to everyone still out there slogging away. It’s a tough race and you are tough sailors! Respect!

Port watch here reporting on the latest news from EH01. The main story tonight is the day has finally arrived when the snack drawer has been replenished. Yay and double yay! Needless to say all the “good” stuff (chocolate and crisps) went early on last week as we battled the elements and the past few days we have been snacking on healthy things like mango and raisins, and our fruit locker of apples and oranges (nutritious but a bit boring!). But now the new chocolate, biscuits and crisps have been “released” to the crew and there was nearly an inter-watch mutiny over a bag of cadbury dairy milk giant buttons!!

In non food related news, it has been an interesting few days of sailing; conditions have been tough but in a very different way from those we experienced towards the end of last week. Sunday’s light winds were welcome respite after the strong winds at the top of the course but they brought their own challenges. Navigating North Sea oil installations (which were both imposing and stunning) with a boat under spinnaker in light winds made for a tricky first few hours of night sailing as the 500m exclusion zones around the installations (and the harsh penalties for infringing those zones) meant that we had to be extra careful of our gybe angles and helming. It was a “two watch” night for Port watch on Sunday, and we thought our second watch would be “plain sailing”....we were wrong!! In the tricky light winds at three o clock in the morning we managed to get some quite spectacular spinnaker “wraps” around the forestay. At one point it looked like we were going to have send Julian (the FM) up to release the halyard. Luckily for us, with some skillful “sail whispering” by Gareth and helming by Julian, we got the wraps out to get under way again.

Monday was a frustrating day for all aboard EH01. The wind vanished and we had to bob around trying to find breeze lines on the water. Port watch had afternoon watch (12- 6) and as we waited for the wind to appear the crew found various ways to pass the time including fishing off the back of boat and taking apart the cooker to clean it (which is a sign of just how bored some crew were!) . We all breathed a collective sigh of relief when around 7pm last night we managed to get under way (largely on apparent wind) and could start counting down the miles to the next way point.

Today (Tuesday) has seen us cross back into English waters and we are now sailing down the East Coast towards our next mark off Norfolk. Today’s wind has been fairly fickle: the weather files suggested that we would encounter another wind hole off the top of England which caused collective groans from the crew. No one on board wanted to spend another day like Monday and with that in mind, we spent the morning trimming the sails carefully and vigilantly monitoring crew position on the “high side” (some members of the crew more militantly than others!) all in the hope that we could maintain our boat speed. Unfortunately late in the afternoon we “hit” the wind hole and had another few hours of slow progress but that gave the starboard watch the opportunity to clean the decks. So far (luckily) that hole has been “short lived” and we are back under way.

The repairs to the main and the pole are holding well and all aboard are well.On Sunday, the crew were surprised by “halfway there” party bags some of which contained play-doh and various members of the crew have been modelling bears, elephants and other animals from the play-doh when sat at the nav station. Special mention goes to FM Julian’s recreation of our course, complete with outlying islands, wind bars and a model EHO1. Picture to follow.

In terms of the fleet, we are mindful that we are “in the middle; we are chasing down those boats which overtook us on Saturday and in turn the boats behind us are chasing us. In short, its all still to play for (except the giant buttons which Port Watch are currently enjoying).

Clair

Team Aparito coming up for air at Great Yarmouth!

The North Sea has certainly thrown everything at us. Sustained 45-50 knots at the top and nothing in the middle.

It’s been emotional. Beat from Shetland was full on, you don’t see that much wind that often.

We’ve had no weather info for the whole North Sea sea as file got accidentally deleted in the mayhem . So stuck close to rhum line which seemed to pay off.

We’re astounded that Tubs (our boat) is still holding onto her position. North Sea is now playing nicely, 12-15 knots and sunshine with the usual nasty chop.

We’re bringing the old girl home, just one more corner to go. Hang in there Tubs!

Pip

Chris, Antoine, Will, Dave and Giles on the helm... hiking with 3 hrs to the finish

We finally caught the southwesterly wind that is going to bring us to the finish.
Hard time to see Pata Negra leaving and the fleet behind coming back on us as we were stuck between the two winds.
Today is a great day: first time of the race we can wear t-shirts on deck!
We are getting a lot of sleep on those long tacks today before the short tacking session in the Channel! Not very easy to play the wind shift and current without sppedo and depth sensor. We ask the navigation software to calculate the boat speed based on the currents files and SOG and then calculate TWA and TWD based on calculated boat speed and AWA.
We will try not ground pushing to much on the coast, ahah!
We found some good french cheese yesterday in the food bags: Horace likes the Comte, not to strong and Ben enjoys the Beaufort!
Looking forward to know the corrected race time of Pata Negra so we can write on the board our deadline and see what the routings says.

cheers
Ben & Horace

Monday Morning 8am

Late last night we were about to put up the A4 and fly along through

the a sea full of oil rigs at about 10-12knots. Giles did a 3hr stint

on the the helm whilst telling jokes and keeping motivation high.

Seems to have done the trick as at day break this morning we can see

Colombre (class 40) in front of us and we have gained some distance on

our figaro rival behind. Through the night, Will Harris, our

navigator did an amazing job of keeping us away from the rigs,

checking AIS, pushing the crew /boat and getting max periods of 30

minutes sleep - not bad for someone in their mid twenties!

The boat is no longer leaking and things are slowly drying out. most

of the boat cushions are wet so they'll be on deck as soon as it warms

up a little more. Breakfast has just been served (museli) and watch

the spare crew are now on the bow as the wind has dropped considerably

now.

Will expects us to be kedged at some point today, which will have its

challenges I'm sure. Aim now is to try and get as much distance as

possible to get sea breezes later in the day. Be nice to have some

sun rather than the grey miserable cloud overhead too. This feels

strange that we are light on wind, after seeing plenty so far, but it

feels more traditional to the summer we've had.

Till this race, I've never sailed down the North sea. Its choppy due

to the shallow depth but also hugely "developed". I wonder if the

general public just how exploited this area is to pull the black stuff

out of the ground, they might be more considerate to energy sources

and usage. There are more oil rigs out here than you can count. It's

certainly resonated on me. Just because it's out of sight, it should

not be out of mind.

Last night's curry seemed a huge hit. Got one more real meal left, so

might be that one and use the threat of Freeze Dried to encourage max

speed towards the finish if we don't get there on Tuesday.

Chris

The 48hours since we rounded St Kilda were an experience like no other !!

At 2am in the pitch black night with 30 knots of breeze we appraoched the enormous sheer cliffs of St Kilda. This tiny set of Islands in the middle of nowhere made an imposing mark rounding, and with less than 0,6 miles away Ollie at the helm was constantly questioning our proximity as I navigated from below. By dayight the wind had steadied to 20-25knots and we launched the A4 kite heading directly to Muggle Flukka (300 miles)leaving Sula Sgeir rock to starboard on route.

An intensive day of full on kite work ensued, with us alternating for some sleep in preparation to the bad weather ahead. By 3Pm the wind had built to 25-30knots, tactical decision to keep the kite up in the building sea state and breeze, and hold off Junique who was 4 miles astern at this point and had been closing the gap all day with their larger kite.They dropped and we started to quickly extend our position.

We were on the edge, the odd broach as a bad wave caught the rudders, but this delivered some stunning surfing at 15knots+. However, when you push your luck it bites back.....and a 43 knot squall landed on us, turning the boat on a penny into the wind. Kite and main are flapping like crazy, we cannot get the boat to turn back downwind, boat is on its side and everything suddenly goes into slow motion. Ollie blows the tack line, the kite shoots aft at a fair lick, whipping the sheets from their blocks and our world got a lot darker.

Spinnaker now untethered apart from the halyard, is now flying horizontal from the top of the mast. Mast and boat is bucking like crazy. We managed to turn the boat downwind and with Ollie now hanging from the leeward rail I steer the boat trying to get the flailing sheets close to him in order to find some way to get it back in the boat. A good catch and sheet is now in Ollie's hands as he dives into the hatchway as I release the halyard. Kite hauled back in with a minor rip, it could have been so much worse.

We licked our wounds, contemplated our luck to have saved the situation and tried not to consider the other outcomes. Jib hoisted, we continued our down wind sleigh ride as the wind continued to increase. By nightfall we had 35 knots of breeze and the frontal system was upon us. Through the night and next morning squalls would come through on top of the sustained 30+ knots, with gusts into the 40's. These big gusts were followed by rain squalls and then a calm 30knots of breeze for another 45 mins or so, where we could have some fun trying to surf multiple enormous waves to achieve the fastest boat speed competition onboard. Lucky Ollie picked up that prize with 21.2 knots...although I was not on deck and cannot verify his result :)

By lunch time Saturday we were approaching Muggle Flukka and the rock that has to be rounded Outstack. Getting round that corner could not come soon enough. British Soldier crossed gybes with us with their trysail flying instead of main. We only had one reef in the main and frankly would have loved to reduce further but the sea state and wind was now dangerous. As we passed ahead of them we cheered aloud, competition was still prevalent in the storm !! We nursed GameOn to the mark, suffering a few more wipeouts and lost our autopilot before finally getting into the lee of the Shetlands. (Great video and photos to come).

The relief between of us of getting to the top of the course and keeping the boat in one piece was palapable. We thought we would have a good couple of hours of calm in the lee of the Island as we travelled back down the Eastern side. We needed to get another reef in the main, reef in the jib and prepare for some upwind gale conditions before the wind swung further west and reduced. We got that wrong, 20 mins of relief was all we got. As we came around the wind tunneled over the land and whacked us hard again. Instantly with too much sail and 40knots the boat was completely on its side with all hell breaking around us. Ollie reefed the jib, leaping around the boat like bloody Spiderman whilst I tried to keep the boat controlled...issh. We then tried to reef the main, but could not get it to come down the mast track. All the time sails flogging and wind howling with waves drenching us. Plan B was hatched, leave the main but change to storm jib on the bow. If it could go wrong it seemed to, but with sheer perseverance we got this done, Ollie collapsing back into the cockpit we resumed our journey south along the coast of the Shetlands. Frankly by then we couldn't wait to see the back of Shitty Saturday.

But by morning calm had returned. 15 knots, sunshine and perfect conditions. A wind shut down during mid morning whilst frustrating (after having too much of the bloody stuff) was a welcome relief. THe Northerly gradient kicked in and this afternoon was stunning conditions..... Super Sunday was here !!. Boat was fully sorted and dried, clothes dried and repairs to autopilot and spinnaker completed, bodies cleaned and fed and plenty of sleep. Mid afternoon a pod of dolphins turned up (proper big dolphins !!) Ollie went up the mast to retrieve a lost halyard and do a rig check after the last 36 hour pounding. The day was completed with a Chicken Tikka curry with nan bread followed by sticky toffee pudding.

So now we are passing the latitude of Aberdeen, 110 miles to its East with 284 miles to the next mark off Thames Estuary. Full main, A2 spinnaker and stay sail flying us along in 15 knots of breeze. Loads of oil rigs, support and guard boats around us, just passed very close to the Montrose Alpha platform which is pretty impressive in the dark, lit up like a christmas tree with gas being burnt off in the sky night.

On the race front we continue to closely battle it out on the water with British Soldier, We can see another race boat further west but unsure who it is as AIS is not working. Beyond that we are not sure of race status and with the recent conditions we think there will highly likely be issues on other boats and possible retirements. Just hope everyone is safe and sound.

Cheers

Ian and Ollie

Heating

Tacking upwind past the Thames Estuary with a 35nm lead and pushing hard to set a new World Record, though with many miles of challenges yet to come, the eventual winner is still far from clear...current ETA of late Monday.

SUNDAY 4PM

Since sending the last transmission, we thought we'd lost Satellite data availability but its back up after a round of reboots. Dinner was a huge success with Spag Bol, Cheese on top with a naan bread on the side - a night of the freeze dried made everyone happy. In addition, we've built a jury rigged a bucket and pump off the watermaker meaning that we can now make water without flooding the boat... - other things are doing that instead.

Water ingress through the bow continues due to a design fault. This will get re-engineered in the refit starting next week, but it means for the current starboard 2 sail reach, we have to continually pump.

Early this morning, the wind truely switched off for a while as the depression formed to the north of us. We worked our way out of it in the rain, and the wind is back up, earlier to 30kts. We're now getting close to working our way through the wind farms and a recent update shows the weather getting more complicated again. We've moved into 2nd place according to YB, and we can see the last 100 miles will be everything in this race.

Ollie has been busy again building a new connector for the inner forestay as the previous one went bang, luckily not damaging the J3. Expecting more kite action tonight which should be more fun too.

Lunch was pate and salad sandwiches which seem to go down well and the magic snack box (always full of treats) is being passed around. Whats good is it is much warmer now and the water temperature is up.

We were escorted last night by 3-4 whale dolphins, which look like a very big dolphin, bouncing along with us. The way they play with the boat and leap from the waves in unison does make you think who is enjoying the experience more - us or them? A few nights ago we had probably about 10 glowing in the water in the phosphorus. They looked like torpedos as they kept up with us at 12 knots. Amazing creatures.

Giles has been on great form, (even with a vegan diet!) keeping the focus but also the positive mood on board. He clearly wants to win but we know it will a tough battle against the others as we come into the channel.

Now I've got a decision to reach... freeze dried or curry... might be tricky!?

Chris

SUNDAY 4PM

Since sending the last transmission, we thought we'd lost Satalite

data availability but its back up after a round of reboots. Dinner

was a huge success with Spag Bol, Cheese on top with a naan bread on

the side - a night of the freeze dried made everyone happy. In

addition, we've built a jury rigged a bucket and pump off the

watermaker meaning that we can now make water without flooding the

boat... - other things are doing that instead.

Water ingress through the bow continues due to a design fault. This

will get re-engineered in the refit starting next week, but it means

for the current starboard 2 sail reach, we have to continually pump.

Early this morning, the wind truely switched off for a while as the

depression formed to the north of us. We worked our way out of it in

the rain, and the wind is back up, earlier to 30kts. We're now

getting close to working our way through the wind farms and a recent

update shows the weather getting more complicated again. We've moved

into 2nd place according to YB, and we can see the last 100 miles will

be everything in this race.

Ollie has been busy again building a new connector for the inner

forestay as the previous one went bang, luckily not damaging the J3.

Expecting more kite action tonight which should be more fun too.

Lunch was pate and salad sandwiches which seem to go down well and

the magic snack box (always full of treats) is being passed around.

Whats good is it is much warmer now and the water temperature is up.

We were escorted last night by 3-4 whale dolphins, which look like a

very big dolphin, bouncing along with us. The way they play with the

boat and leap from the waves in unison does make you think who is

enjoying the experience more - us or them? A few nights ago we had

probably about 10 glowing in the water in the phosphorus. They looked

like torpedos as they kept up with us at 12 knots. Amazing creatures.

Giles has been on great form, (even with a vegan diet!) keeping the

focus but also the positive mood on board. He clearly wants to win

but we know it will a tough battle against the others as we come into

the channel.

Now I've got a decision to reach... freeze dried or curry... might be tricky!?

Chris

Hi all!

thought it was high time we wrote a quick update on our race so far!

Its been pretty busy and tiring at times, with a forecast gale that has kept me preoccupied, after the RBI 2014, where we retired due to a storm at the top of the course blocking our way, this has been playing on my mind somewhat!

Anyway, I am pleased to report said gale is now behind us, and we are still all systems go with no sail damage (yet!)

The race has been pretty epic so far, a reach out the Solent was followed by a beat to the Scilly isles, my ploy to go rock hopping at the Lizard proved to be rather slow, costing us several hours and our early lead in class 2 IRC.

We had clocked some of our usual competition in Class 2 including the British Soldier and EH01, not spotted was the Figaro 2 sailed by a couple of the victorious Dongfeng Volvo team! These guys are racing 2 handed, and demonstrating what can be done with a well prepared Figaro, and some big balls! We feared a fast planing boat could be impossible to live with in the strong reaching and downwind conditions, and these guys have proved the point! They have sailed exceptionally hard and well, i guess their ‘comfort zone’ extends well beyond what most would consider terrifying! Bravo guys, a well deserved and earnt lead!

We have had to satisfy ourselves for racing for a second place (for now at least!), but that has been a great challenge, we were in sight of EH01, Azawakh and British Soldier for most of the trip. Our big kite selection for the race was looking a little punchy, but yesterday we flew our heavy 169sqm symmetric most the day in winds at times exceeding 30knots, pleased to report no wipeouts, and a healthy top speed of 19.1knots on a surf with that sail.

Our routing had us gybing a lot, but we are able to sail very deep angles with waves quicker than the computer thinks so we sailed a little further North than predicted this actually set us up for a long stb lay into Muckle Fugga. as daylight dwindled, so did ourr bravado, and with wind topping out over 30kn at times we dropped the spinnaker, and setup a two jib and a pole arrangement.

As wind built further through last night we dropped the J2 and poled out the J3.5, with a doubled reefed mainsail. This proved even faster than the big spinnaker with a few surfs over 20knots as we rounded Muckle Fugga (there was a fair bit of breeze though!), We were pleased to see our direct route with big surfs had paid handsomely, pulling 15miles out on our competitors overnight

After turning South the anticipated gale arrived, our change to upwind mode from running mode was completed in relatively flat water behind the Shetland islands, the reefable jib provided extra excitement and fun for the foredeck team, as tying in the reefed sail cloth in 35knots with the boat half under water is not easy it would seem! As the wind built to gale force, we elected to drop the mainsail entirely and just sail on reefed 3.5 alone, protecting the mainsail. with some gusts around 50knots this was a good choice, we monitored boatspeed of ourselves and others (on tracker) and found even in the ‘lulls’ of 30knots speed was still competitive with no main.

Anyway, enough rambling for one message! We are just sailing into a light patch of wind now so back on full sail, expect to see boatspeed falling to very little soon…

All well onboard, crew in great spirits (largely due to great food pre-prepared by my lovely wife) Mr B has done an amazing job of preparing the food onboard, as well as some great driving last night in some challenging conditions!

Pleased to report that apart form one broken jib hal, we are 100% on sailing gear still. Boat has been very dependable through the rough stuff too.

All for now, just getting light and i think we will hoist the code 0 soon

Cheers

Ross

After a "drive it like you stole it" sail to Muckle Flugga, it was more like "try to keep it in one piece" after the Shetlands...
We had a really furious downwind with top speed 21kts over the ground, pushing as much as we could with the big kite and then the small one, with a few of broaches along the way!!
Then the upwind was very tough with max gust at 50kts and a very bad crossed sea.
We are now playing between the transitions, trying our best to keep our advantage over the boats behind and not let Pata Negra go too far ahead. We will see in 4 days or so!

We have a restricted version of our autopilot now, as our speedo interface is broken. We can't have the TWA mode on the autopilot. it is a big handicap because you can't follow the rotations of the wind and have to adjus the sails or the heading constantly...
But moral is at 100%: we are having good rest now that the boat and us are getting a bit dryer!

Quite a sad moment an hour ago: a small bird came to rest on the boat, but flew away as i approached the winch next to him, he tried as hard as he could to rejoin the boat, i eased the sails, but he didn't make it and ended in the water, poor him.

Sailing Logic’s First 40 Arthur, skippered by Jonathan Tyrrell, celebrate at Muckle Flugga

Hi all!

thought it was high time we wrote a quick update on our race so far!

Its been pretty busy and tiring at times, with a forecast gale that has kept me preoccupied, after the RBI 2014, where we retired due to a storm at the top of the course blocking our way, this has been playing on my mind somewhat!

Anyway i am pleased to report said gale while as advertised is now behind us, and we are still all systems go with no sail damage (yet!)

The race has been pretty epic so far, a reach out the Solent was followed by a beat to the Scilly isles, my ploy to go rock hopping at the Lizard provide to be rather slow, costing us several hours and our early lead in class 2 IRC.

We had clocked some of our usual competition in Class 2 including the British Soldier and EH01, not spotted was the Figaro 2 sailed by a couple of the victorious Dongfeng Volvo team! These guys are racing 2 handed, and demonstrating what can be done with a well prepared Figaro, and some big balls! We feared a fast planing boat could be impossible to live with in the strong reaching and downwind conditions, and these guys have proved the point! They have sailed exceptionally hard and well, i guess their ‘comfort zone’ extends well beyond what most would consider terrifying! Bravo guys, a well deserved and earnt lead!

We have had to satisfy ourselves for racing for a second place (for now at least!), but that has been a great challenge, we were in sight of EH01, Azawack and British Soldier for most of the trip. Our big kite selection for the race was looking a little punchy, but yesterday we flew our heavy 169sqm symmetric most the day in winds at times exceeding 30knots, pleased to report no wipeouts, and a healthy top speed of 19.1knots on a surf with that sail.

Our routing had us gybing a lot, but we are able to sail very deep angles with waves quicker than the computer thinks so we sailed a little further North than predicted this actually set us up for a long stb lay into Muckle Fugga. as daylight dwindled, so did ourr bravado, and with wind topping out over 30kn at times we dropped the spinnaker, and setup a two jib and a pole arrangement.

As wind built further through last night we dropped the J2 and poled out the J3.5, with a doubled reefed mainsail. This proved even faster than the big spinnaker with a few surfs over 20knots as we rounded Muckle Fugga (there was a fair bit of breeze though!), we were pleased to see our direct route with big surfs had paid handsomely, pulling 15miles out on our competitors overnight

After turning South the anticipated gale arrived, our change to upwind mode from running mode was completed in relatively flat water behind the Shetland islands, the reefable jib provided extra excitement and fun for the foredeck team, as tying in the reefed sail cloth in 35knots with the boat half under water is not easy it would seem! As the wind built to gale force, we elected to drop the mainsail entirely and just sail on reefed 3.5 alone, protecting the mainsail. with some gusts around 50knots this was a good choice, we monitored boatspeed of ourselves and others (on tracker) and found even in the ‘lulls’ of 30knots speed was still competitive with no main.

Anyway, enough rambling for one missive! We are just sailing into a light patch of wind now so back on full sail, expect to see boatspeed falling to very little soon…

All well onboard, crew in great spirits (largely due to great food pre-prepared by my lovely wife) Mr B has done an amazing job of preparing the food onboard, as well as some great driving last night in some challenging conditions!

Pleased to report that apart form one broken jib hal, we are 100% on sailing gear still. Boat has been very dependable through the rough stuff too.

All for now, just getting light and i think we will hoist the code 0 soon

Cheers

Ross

So things are good, we are reaching up the coast of the Shetlands, averaging about 9 knots and the wind is 16-18 knots.
We actually dropped the main sail last night, which was sort of always in our plan. From the weather forecast we had even before we started, we had discussed it and decided we would likely need to do it at some point as a precaution.
I was driving just before dark with 25 knots from behind when we were hit by a squall of about 37 knots. At the time we had a reefed jib and two in the main, and were coming off waves at 19 knots. I shouted down to Gavin who was sleeping. We managed to get it down quite well and secured, I had been worried about the head of the sail coming out and whipping around, so we left the halyard in and tied everything.
We continued on with the reefed jib on its own, and the boat was really well mannered with this in the 4 metre waves.

The swell was actually worse this morning as the wind had shifted. We have been hit by about 3 or 4 huge waves over the past 24 hours which just completely swamp the cockpit, so we have to have the companion way completely sealed up and washboard in, and if you are up on deck for even the shortest time to check something you have to clip on ASAP.
We rehoisted the main at 5pm and things have been going well. The boat is doing very well... touch wood the only issues we have had so far are the really small leak, a broken lee cloth and the saucepan has a dent it it after an incident during a breaking wave!

Sam Cooper

We made it. Lots of wind here!

FRIDAY LUNCH TIME

My morning watch was an interesting one... Giles & I spent our time

lifting floorboards to find a very very wet boat. Its all looking a

lot better now but we must of been carrying an extra 500Kg. It just

gets in everywhere.

What's noticable is the crew are really settled into the watches now.

We are running 3 groups (oldies, mids and kids) of 3 people. I ended

up in the Oldies and not too sure how I feel about that. So Giles,

Donald and I do 3hrs on, 3hrs Standby and 3hrs off and started at

12pm. The Mids (Ollie, Dave & Rich) do the same but with 1 hr later,

starting at 1pm. Then the kids (James, Antoine and Will) do the same

from 2pm. This means that one person up and one down on each hour.

We were all a bit confused when Giles dreamed this up, but it has

worked so well. All sail changes have been done leaving the off watch

asleep but they did have to bounce across when we tacked.

Feeding them has kept me busy though as you can't get everyone in a

short period - cuts down on the washing up though! Sleep is now

extremely deep, refreshing and rewarding with many talking about

extremely strange dreams (maybe that's the food???!)

Will has generally been up every hour to check the weather & Nav. His

background in Oceanography and his passion for sailing show in the

intensive way he studies every grib, satalite image and chart. Every

call so far has been perfect. I hope that he gets his dream of a

IMOCA 60 campaign as I think he'd be great.

We're honoured to have 3 Class 40 sailors (Dave & Antoine & the boat

skipper Ollie) and Will who is a Figaro sailor. You can really see a

difference in the way they push the boat and drive the waves. After

doing the RORC transat on this boat with Donald in 2016, I'm a real

fan of Lombard's design with the twin rudders and heavy chine. The

boat drives so well and for the first time in 3 years I saw it broach

on this trip. The control is incredible and the way you can kick it

down the waves means you catch more than a normal boaMO.

Now approaching Outstack so I'm signing off till through the storm.

Get the feeling we are going to be getting very wet. Photos are us

getting the Jibs ready for the turn whilst doing 17 knots... James and

Will up the front!

Chris

SATURDAY 5PM

After the 30 knots- I've got back on the keyboard at last. Fair to

say since getting around the top, its been pretty grim. We were hard

on the wind in upto 30 knots of wind, 2 reefs and the J3 with the

worst cross swell of the North Atlantic meeting the extremely choppy

north sea. This resulted in the boat literally taking off many waves

and going through others, bringing further challenges I'll mention

later.

So several had their freeze dried dinner washed with Salt water, and

as the night drew on it got very cold. This was because a depression

system was moving over us and in true tradition, later on it gets wet

with rain, gusts and the temperature drops. Due to the intense

slamming going on as the bow free fell out of the air, the interior of

the boat makes the most loud and angry noises. Just think about being

inside of Phil Collin's drum... you're ready for every note but they

come much more powerful than you ever expected.

I've not been able to get near the nav because of this, but also

because of the incredible amount of oil rigs out here which have to be

avoided very carefully. Each installation with it's guard ships,

carefully circuling their domain ensuring you don't get anywhere near

them. This means at time having to route through very narrow gaps

between fields and frequent adjustments to the Course to Steer, along

with dialogue with the guardships ensuring we will keep to the 500m

exclusion zone.

Now whilst real diligence was going on between the nav and those on

deck, we discovered a major issue. We were taking on A LOT of water.

After significant pumping, buckets and lifting boards, every ingress

was checked. Eventually the culprits were found. 1) the water was

still pumping through the power socket from the chain locker into the

boat... Now filled with sealant, which has slowed it and will be

re-engineered after the race. 2) because of the aforementioned

slaming, the water maker had departed from its mounting, sheered the

exhaust and was then letting free flow into the boat.

Just like appolo 13 that then brings a new set of challenges.... we

do have nearly enough liquid to get back, but it would be nice not to

restrict the crew. We therefore figured out if we run the bildge pump

in the compartment the water maker operates in, we can drain the flood

as it makes us fresh water.... which we did... but....

After making about 50 litres of water into the bladder, we've then

found that the bladder has also suffered and is leaking.

So the plan now is just to put the feed tube into bottles to keep us

going, but we still have to pump as we make fresh water. Good news is

that this means the freeze dried is off the menu tonight and spag bol

is on.

Credit has to go to Ollie Heer, the boat captain, who has worked so

hard over the last 24 hrs, sailing, fixing, clearing and only getting

2 hrs sleep.

Forecast routing updates are now getting very frequent due to a

difficult low coming across the UK over the next day which causes Will

much gazing at the screen reviewing the options ahead of us.

I think today really demonstrated the statement at the race briefing

that this is RORC's toughest yacht race... my body is in full

agreement.

Chris

Just in from Imerys - Position: 1st / Distance to finish: 337.2 nm

“The North Sea presented typically uncomfortable conditions last night… We were slamming upwind in force 7 winds, which made even the thought of sleep difficult, and balancing to get in and out of our foul weather gear pretty interesting – being thrown from side to side.

“So we have another challenge to face for the rest of the race… During the night out main wind instruments went down, which forced the boat to crash tack and brought us to a halt. We have tried the spare kit, but it is refusing to work. So now we are down to zero wind instruments, which means that we have no wind reference until the end of the race. It’s back to dinghy sailing mode – feeling for the air, which is definitely a disadvantage, especially at night when you can’t see the wind on the sea.

“Although the wind started to simmer down, it is now back up and has headed us. Currently we are unable to lay England and we are really hoping this doesn’t hinder our chances to break the record… Phil”