Ellen is tired, bruised and battered after two mast climbs yesterday to repair the mainsail mast track damaged by the headboard car ripping out of the track: “I feel like I’ve been beaten up this morning… Stiff as hell, and moving round with the speed and elegance of an arthritic robot!”

It will take Ellen a long time to recover from the physical exertions of climbing the 30 metre mast. She was running on pure adrenalin and the relief of getting back down combined with the fact that the damage to the track had not proved terminal was plain to hear: “I’ve done it. I’ve finished the repair. All finished. The damage at the 1st reef was not so bad, not like the 2nd reef. It was just burred. I’ve drunk four litres of sports drink straight down – I cut my thumb while I was up there which made me laugh, as I thought to myself when I saw it bleeding, doc’s advice would be to keep it elevated. At 25 metres up, I can’t do better than that! I can’t believe what I’ve been through in past two weeks, I’m buggered.”

Climbing the mast was a serious and dangerous undertaking for MacArthur who inevitably got thrown and bashed around during the climb: “It was all I could do to hold on, it was brutal, really hard…”

Ellen undertook the first mast climb at 1600GMT yesterday to the second and lower reef point 69ft [21.05m] up the mast and discovered quite significant damage to the mainsail mast track. The mainsail is attached to the mast via a series of ‘cars’ that slide up and down a metal track fixed to the backside of the mast. The final car at the top of the mainsail is known as the headboard car, this is the one that takes the most load. She managed to tidy up the damage, filing down the jagged edges so the mainsail cars could pass smoothly without catching. Ellen could have replaced a section of the track if necessary but it would have been a mammoth job on her own, up the mast on a moving and lurching boat. She was unable to make the ascent to the first reef point without the mainsail in place, so made the decision to descend, hoist the mainsail back up to just under the first reef point, and then went for the second climb 82ft [25.05m] up the mast at 1900gmt. During the climbs she had sailed B&Q away from the wind, rather than bashing upwind, so had effectively sailed back down her course. An hour later, MacArthur was back on deck – job done, and ready to get her record attempt back on track.

Her lead over the record is down to 1 day and 20 hours this morning after the trials and tribulations of unfavourable weather systems since rounding Cape Horn and not surprisingly having to sail away from the direct course for two hours yesterday. In terms of distance, B&Q is only 669 miles ahead of Joyon’s equivalent position – her smallest advantage since approaching halfway on New Year’s Eve. B&Q has covered just under 22,000 miles at an average speed of 17 knots and with 4,815 miles to go on the course, Ellen must maintain a VMG [velocity made good towards the finish] of 10.6 knots. Although the reality is that Ellen will sail more miles, possibly as much as 1500 miles, to stay in favourable conditions which will require faster boat speeds from B&Q of up to 12-12.5 knots.