Day 30 : East of Rio Grande

We all came on watch after Saturday's 24-hour marathon looking very tired. What sleep we did manage to get was often interrupted by noise on deck. Every shout, every clatter of sheets and grinding of the winches echoes through the hull and it's difficult to just count sheep when the next 'everyone on deck' could be moments away. So, tired and physically exhausted we start our watches but throughout the day we all talk about the events of the night before and a strong sense of camaraderie builds. As we recount our individual stories of heroics from helm to foredeck thought of returning to our bunks disappear and we remember why we wanted to do this thing in the first place. It is at these times that the two watches tend to overlap more.

During the day people arrive on deck and muck-in with sail changes whether they are on watch or not and soon we are a dynamic team again and patting each other on the back. Spirits lifted, we view the fleet positions not with a defeated gloom but an optimistic 'right that's the problem - let's try fix it'. The problem is not a small one, we pulled five miles back on Barclays Adventurer in the afternoon only to lose it again during the night and they took 11 miles from us over the 24 hour period. Samsung and VAIO have increased their lead over us by 8 and 20 miles respectively and although we were only 1.8 miles from BG SPIRIT yesterday morning they pulled away too and are now about nine miles in front. We did however take 20 miles from Spirit of Sark. The leading five yachts are quite spread out now with most of them further west than BP Explorer. At the moment we are far enough apart to be experiencing different conditions and trying to match the yachts performance like for like is impossible. The next two and a half days will be very interesting as we all converge on a waypoint at the mouth of the River Plate and aim for a piece of ocean one tenth of a mile wide. The challenge will be to get the best possible position before the waypoint hoping that conditions are better for us further east. After that it's a straight race up the River Plate to the finish.

Halloween brought it's sailing horrors to the deck but during the day a friendly witch by the name of Laura Alexander promised to cast a 'good luck' spell over the chart table. We've no doubt of her abilities in the snake pit let's hope the spell works as well.