Day 26 :130 miles off the coast of Brazil

We have now left the relatively predictable trade winds and are in more variable winds off of Brazil. The night watches are long as we are focusing hard on trimming and helming and they are also tiring as we are constantly changing and adjusting spinnakers. During the night the wind changed dramatically and we had to drop the flanker. On the way down it sustained a sizable rip and was hastily sent below where the sail repair team were woken to start a repair.

Meanwhile the 1.5 oz kite was hoisted only to find that that too had a tear and that had to be dropped immediately. For what was an agonisingly long time we had no sails up until we finally poled out the no1 Yankee. The position report confirmed our fears and we had lost valuable miles on Barclays Adventurer, Samsung and VAIO and the gap between us BG Spirit and Spirit of Sark had closed. When something like this happens often the off watch will stay on to help the on watch and make sure a procedure is finished and everything is ok before heading off to bed. The four hours off during the night can easily become two and everyone looks forward to getting in their bunks, however, the noise on deck can make sleeping without ear plugs quite difficult as all the hatches are open as it is so hot below. I guess nobody said this was going to be easy. The distance between us, BG Spirit and Spirit of Sark would be good on the last day of the leg but with over a week to go the pressure is on maintain and increase the gap. The good news is that with the variable winds comes the real opportunity to shine performance wise and we are confident that we will shine. It also opens up the game in that there are far more possibilities for an unfocussed team to make a mistake or a wrong routing decision and give us the window we need to improve our race position. Major Malhi took over the airwaves today as he hosted the chat show between yachts. Each yacht takes it in turn to host the chat show where positions are exchanged and time is given for informal chats to the skippers and crews who we have all become good friends over the years. It was also an opportunity for Laura Alexander to have a chat with her boyfriend who is a crewmember aboard Pindar.