Back on track? Well back on course perhaps but definitely not back on track to break any records. Having had a very promising start Bullimore has now lost so much time getting out of the path of major storms and effecting repairs that he must have lost any chance of breaking Ellen MacArthur’s 71 day record. As of 0600 this morning (Thursday) he had some 5,000 miles to go to reach Cape Horn – and if he’s to stick to his planned schedule he’s got 5 days to do that in. That’s an average of nearly 42 knots.

Mind you, there can’t be many people who could sail a 102 foot catamaran solo in the Southern Ocean in winter at any age, let alone aged 68. Perhaps it’s something to do with his infamous curries – he claimed the last one he had was ‘hot enough to raise the roof of Alexandra Palace’.