A few weeks ago I had a long phone call from Tony calling on his mobile from the dockside in Tasmania. He was querying some of the facts in a short piece we had published about him and Doha 2006 in the January issue, like the weight of the mainsail and the brand of food he was taking with him. He then told of his woes waiting for spare parts, waiting for the Sydney Hobart to finish and waiting for his forecaster, Lee Bruce, to come up with the news of a suitable weather window to sligshot him deep into the Southern Ocean.

A bit puzzled as to how we might have got our facts apparently so badly wrong I did a bit of checking and soon found the source. None other than the Team Bullimore web site, www.teambullimore.com.

If Tony has a reputation for anything it is his dogged persistance, the bulldog determination that must have largely been responsible for keeping him alive in the upturned hull of Exide Challenger for five days in 1997. And for the last three months and probably many hundreds of cups of tea he has doggedly waited for that promised weather break so that he and his 102 foot catamaran can set off to try and break the 70 days solo round the world barrier. And now, right at the end of the Austral summer it looks as though that break will be coming his way in the next week or so. Bon Voyage Tony!