Kingfisher has escaped major damage after a collision with a mystery object in the middle of the night. Neal McDonald who was on deck at the time described the situation heart stopping, commenting: ‘My first thought was “crickey we could be sinking”. We were doing 24-25 knots and suddenly heard an almighty bang?We dropped the jib, reducing the speed to 5 knots and assessed the damage situation. Luckily there only seems to a small amount of damage to the starboard rudder fixings.”

Despite their brush with fear in the depths of the Southern Ocean, Kingfisher is clocking up some good speeds and has gained time on Orange’s record (now just 30 minutes behind) and has pulled out a couple of hours on Geronimo (approximately two days behind).

According to reports from the boat this morning at a position of 44 38’S 27 28’E, the conditions are a lot calmer but boat speed has remained on record. The current wind state is 20 knots which should hold for the next 12 hours as they traverse the convergence zone between the high pressure and low pressure system. After that, strong north westerlies are expected.