47' 27N 14' 28W

For most of the race we have written our logs from the aft computer but then we moved to the navigators table so as to avoid waking those trying to sleep in the aft accommadation - the light from the screen and the annoying clickty-click of the keyboard can be a pain. Now we need total focus from Stephen and he sits glued to the navigation computers making sure we are on course every five minutes or so. So once again I'm at the back trying to type as softly as I can, freezing every time I hear someone turn in their bunks. I can hear Holger and Olly talking through the open hatch above me, they probably don't know I'm here. Holger's concerned that some of the other boats are gaining on us. The position report as we came on watch showed some slight gains across the fleet - damn! We are still holding fourth place though.

Me To You are under four miles ahead and as I write this I can hear Naomi calling back to the helm that she can see their lights on the horizon.

We have been sailing well and putting miles, and bits of miles, between us and those behind and we've been creeping up on Me To You in third place. But, with a bad position report comes that nagging doubt that maybe some of those around us have a little more wind or a kinder sea state and that maybe they could steal a position back. Barclays Adventurer and BG SPIRIT are less than three miles behind us, which is nothing. We can track Barclays Adventurer on the radar and they are a good measure of how we are doing but BG SPIRIT are about 35 miles to the north and potentially are getting different conditions. It's a testing time.

This has been a strange leg in so many ways. Just when you think you have it all figured out this ocean racing lark twists you round and you have to face new situations. One could say that in terms of sailing these boats we are hardly amateurs anymore but it seems that on this leg we have seen more things to test our confidence than any other. Spinnakers twisting in strange ways as they go up and then again getting caught on new parts of the rigging as they come down. Not errors necessarily but just bad luck.

We have also made some mistakes that seem really amateurish, kites attached wrongly, halyards twisted but perhaps now we are just being hypercritical. We have managed to sort them all out of course well before they have caused a serious problems but it does make you think all the time. Have we checked everything? have we done this so many times that we are becoming complacent? The end result is that we may be performing some procedures slower than we have done in the past. David seems to think so and is encouraging us to speed up a bit. The good news is that we haven't trashed anything, we are still a very safe crew and we have been regularly sailing faster than the rest of the fleet but as the competition heats up and days left to prove ourselves get less, everything needs to be spot on. When it comes to boat lengths at the finish there is nothing that can go slower and nothing that can go wrong. Maybe we are being hypercritical but with everything else being equal it could be the one thing that gets us the result.