Day 31 :32 02 S 49 36 W

'New boat speed record,' hollers the helm, his voice coming through the gloom of a rapid nightfall in a mixture of exhilaration and fear. 'A phrase which often comes before maximum mess-ups,' adds the skipper wryly - but you can tell that he is relieved to be going fast once again! Yesterday afternoon we watched in dismay as the wind speed faded and faded to practically nothing. For several hours we crept along, tiptoeing about the yacht as the helms nursed her through the water, sniffing out every bit of available breeze.

By this time in fifth position (BG SPIRIT having overtaken us by several miles), we had to re-remind ourselves of what David had told us at our lunchtime meeting - 'The die is not cast for another couple of days, you have to keep going.' Two hours later he came on deck and padded about the decks tweaking here, tweaking there and looking like sleep was the last thing on his mind. 'I really have a feeling that this afternoon could prove to be a crucial watch so please make sure that you are doing everything you can to make the yacht go faster.' It is useful to hear words of encouragement like this but we are all as hungry as each other for a good position. The stops are permanently all pulled out in this neck of the woods! The afternoon did, indeed, turn out to see some significant changes.

As we went from the lightweight kite, to the 1.5 (and later the flanker) with the wind building steadily, the boat accelerated, and accelerated, and accelerated some more.

By watch changeover at 6pm we were storming along. By the next change at 10pm, the watch coming off were taking to their bunks fully dressed and in lifejackets - constantly on the edge of our wind range for each spinnaker, we had to be coiled for action at any time. At some point in the evening we overtook BG SPIRIT and saw that we were now just seven miles from Samsung! As the girls in the snakepit at midnight - Laura and Goldie - belted out 'Surfing USA' as they whooped through the surf aboard what they described as 'our one-horse open sleigh', I think it is fair to say that however conservative we want to be, everyone on BP Explorer is now secretly hoping for something better than fourth.