Arrival NYC - 27 May

Well we've finished race 11 and came in 6th. We're all delighted. With the two bonus points, one for the scoring gate and one for the ocean sprint, we have seven points, as if we were forth. All good in keeping our position in the general standings.

We are just approaching New York, this is my first visit here. I am so excited. I'm not going to be in the nav station typing as don't want miss the approach, so signing off now.

The endgame - 26 May

Yesterday was a day of big changes in the weather. In the morning we were blasting along, upwind, at over 10 knots. I had half an hour on the helm and it was really hard work again. After five o'clock tea, when I was on for evening watch, the wind gradually dropped, the grey cloudy skies cleared and up the spinnaker went. It was lovely to have a clear sky with view of the carpet of stars and the moon, which we haven't had for days.

There are light winds ahead, which means that the fleet will bunch up towards the finish line. We are on our guard to eke out each tenth of a knot of boat speed to at least hold our 6th position if not climb further.

We can see Yorkshire on the horizon, which gives us added focus to stay ahead of them. The final chess game is about to play out.

The immanency of the luxuries of land life is giving excitement to us all.

The sprint to the line - 25 May

All is good at the moment. Ben, the skipper wanted to pass Cape Hatteras before a low pressure system started to affect us in an adverse way, I'm not sure how, but we have achieved that. We've been screaming along for the past 24 hours and eating into the distance between us and the boats ahead. We're now only 14 miles behind DLL and closing. 48 hours ago, they were 50 miles ahead. We are all pretty happy with the progress.

Yesterday afternoon I had half an hour on the helm in each watch. It was really hard work and half an hour was enough. In these conditions of upwind with between 20 and 30 knots of wind, it is all I can do to control the wheel. I decided to have short spells so I can build up the muscle strength for it. Nothing you do in the gym can replicate it, so it's just a case of doing it on the job.

I also had to go up to the bow in the night to check the sail trim and it struck me that 18 months ago, I would have been absolutely terrified to do that in these conditions. Now, I may be on my hands and knees to get there, but I am relaxed and confident I'll be fine.

Below deck moving about is difficult so everything seems a great effort.

If we continue at this rate we'll be in to New Jersey tomorrow evening. Meantime we'll continue to chase down the boats ahead.

High spirits - 24 May

30° North. Somewhere off the coast of southern USA.

The last two days have been great. The day before last I was on mother watch with Sarah and had a great day. We were able to indulge in lots of gossip, the cooking was nothing to tax the weary brain and we caught up on chores that the boat needed, and oh, of course, the bliss of having a shower.

Yesterday and this morning the whole crew have worked really hard. As one, we were very keen to go all out for the ocean sprint win, and have just heard we have achieved that. For the first time for days we had good winds so the sailing was great fun. Keeping going as fast as possible meant hard work by the helms and meticulous trimming. We also did several evolutions, when kites were changed, altered to white sails, and a gybe. It all ate into the off watch time of each watch, but everyone has been happy to do it.

This is added with the goal of moving up the fleet and the latest news is that we are now 7th and only 3 miles behind Qingdao. This has come down from the 50 miles that they were ahead of us two days ago. Spirits are high.

During this morning’s watch, however we did intend to launch the medium weight kit, “Mabel”, but out of Mabel's bag came “Sticky Vicky”, the heavy weight. Mistakes happen, especially when you have to pack a kite in the low light levels below at night. Another mistake was not spotting which kite was in the bag before we launched it. Fortunately it happened after we had finished the ocean sprint and when weather conditions were fairly benign. There had been a bit of debate as to which of these to fly anyway so it hasn't been the end of the word, just a couple of hours when weren't going as fast as we might. The boat operates a no blame culture. I'm sure it will just bring to everyone’s attention that checking and double checking everything is always necessary.

Passing the Bahamas - 21 May

We are just sailing past the Bahamas. Life is tough although having said that, we haven't seen much of the land. I think we all avidly await the schedules of the race positions to see if we have caught up at all. As ever, none of like being “tail-end Charlie”. This morning we've had a good spinnaker run for the whole four hour watch so we are making good progress.

Yesterday was a little cooler, as we had cloudy skies. We were treated, in the evening, to a squall passing over us and I went up to join a few of the crew having a deck shower in the rain. I had been wanting desperately to wash my hair so it came just at a timely moment, while I was off watch. It was bliss, to just get soaking wet with fresh water and have a nice wash. The rain runs down the main sail and there you get the best shower.

Food wise it was a good day too. Ben made us all scrambled eggs for breakfast and the fish we caught in the morning was divine. It was real food for a change and felt we were getting something with nutritional value. Actually that's a bit harsh. The food is ok but rather repetitive and almost everything is out of cans.

I'm continuing to learn lots, so I am really appreciating that.

Another new experience - 20 May

There has been lots happening in the last 12 hours to entertain us, to make up for two days of pretty well just drifting in no wind. It is very frustrating that having worked hard to get a point at the scoring gate, others who didn't have got the jump on us and are now doing much better in the distance to finish. Anyway, as we know, anything can happen, so we will continue to work hard to get further up the leader board.

Last night on the midnight to 3am shift I became aware of a noise off the starboard side of the boat. It sounded like water breaking over rocks and became gradually louder. It was a pitch black night with no moon, as there was heavy cloud cover. We knew we weren’t near any rocks or shallow water but checked the chart again, just in case. It started to become a little scary, as whatever it was got closer, the noise becoming louder. We called Ben on deck just as the waterspout passed across the front of the boat and hovered on the port side. It was a mini tornado, about the 20-25 meters in diameter. With a torch light on it, we could just see the water swirling around. We had to rapidly drop the windseeker, the light weight head sail, which was up. This was followed by the very heavy rain of a squall, but in the pitch dark not appropriate to get the shower gel out and have a wash. All very exciting. Our Canadian crew member Greg, who sails a lot along the eastern US coast, greeted our excitement as he came up on watch with, "Haven't you seen a water spout before?". “Well no” , was my reply “I haven't”. They are very rare, if they happen at all around Britain. Apparently they are quite common off the coast of Florida. Anyway, it was an amazing thing to see for the first time and I will remember it for a very long time.

During our 6 - 9am watch, we had the fishing line out and caught a Spanish Mackerel, judged to be about 6-7 kgs and I would say just under a meter in length. This was expertly filleted immediately by our 1st mate Will, who was a head chef in a former life. It's on the menu for lunch. All this was going on while those with jobs sailing the boat tried not to get distracted and keep the kite trimmed. We do not want another wrap.