Day 28 :24deg 28min S 42deg 14 W

The water finally pumped from the bilges and clothes strung out and drying around the yacht the conversation around the saloon table turns to Thursdays. It seems that every Thursday on this leg something has happened to BP Explorer. The first was the force 10 storm, one week later was a bad spinnaker day, the week after a foreguy broke and we lost places. This Thursday we were hit by a very strong gust front as a trough passed over us with everyone on deck battling to get back on course and avoid any damage thus ruining our chance to regain the lead. Next Thursday is the day before the first yacht's expected arrival in Buenos Aires we hope by then we've had all our bad luck and it goes without incident. The hard work on deck is paying off and we are holding our 4th place position and we were nibbling away at the miles between us and VAIO in third place. We were that is until the fleet positions this morning which showed that while trying to save our kites during the night we seem to have been going slower. A constant headache for the tacticians is how far to push it and when. In the quest for more speed or to protect the sails they may remain for as long as it took to get up before conditions change and it's brought down again and replaced with what was before.

Meanwhile, Barclays Adventurer have increased their lead and are 59 miles ahead of us in first place. Behind them is Samsung who we appear to be attached to with a piece of bungee as we seem to gain miles only to lose them the following day. After seeing Spirit of Sark on the horizon behind us on Friday night we are now 11 miles ahead of them and 15 miles in front of BG SPIRIT. We passed through an oilfield off the coast of Cabo Frio during the day yesterday and made sure we kept a safe distance from the huge oilrigs scattered around us. When we used our binoculars though we did see some of the crew on the rigs waving at us, one can only wonder what they might have thought when they saw a BP yacht passing by - were BP sailing their crews out to the rigs now in another step towards a greener company?

Or maybe this was a spying mission. The flames from the gas burners disappeared over the horizon during the night and we are now clear of obstacles and some 860 miles to the River plate and from there only 100 miles from the finish of leg one and that sweet, sweet beer.