Tony Bullimore and his crew on the 102ft catamaran Doha 2006 whose entire communication system broke down 11 days ago made contact with the outside world at lunchtime on Saturday.

Bullimore who’s currently en-route to Tasmania for the start of his solo global record attempt, finally reported in at 1300 UTC on Saturday at a position of 36′ 09″ S, 107′ 3’E – approximately 420 miles from the West Australian port of Albany.

Explaining their lack of communication, Bullimore told his team co-ordination centre in the UK: “The crew and boat are fine. We have simply been out of satellite range for our Mini M phone which is working again now that we are approaching Western Australia. We have two other satellite phones onboard but there seems to be a problem with the aerial connections which we will try and get fixed in Albany before heading on to Hobart.”