The Norwegian yacht djuice dragons is suffering with serious boat speed having been overtaken by Assa Abloy who was five minutes late for the start yesterday. Knut Frostad, skipper of djuice dragons sent this message from the yacht this afternoon.

Fetching is not our strong point of sailing, but it’s only going to last another eight hours – thank god. We have eight guys on deck hiking over the rail and trimming when they can. Assa Abloy passed us on pure speed with less people on deck, looking quite relaxed. We can only remind ourselves that we would have been further back if we hadn’t pushed so hard. As we only have two to three guys down below at a time, the bunks are filled with spinnakers. We are just stacked to the limits.

We just had a 40 knot squall, but the wind went back to 25 right after. The only thing that seems to get worse is the waves. Bouncing and jumping from wave to wave, is very uncomfortable both for the boat and crew. Not much food has been eaten so far, but we drink as much as we can. I can see my breakfast next morning will be pretty similar to the last dinner: just another energy bar from our sponsor Nutripharma.

In about ten hours we will reach Ushant and the north-west corner of France. The waves are going to be worse there. As it seems now, we will have some current with us, but we cannot afford to be there any hour later. Counter-current and westerly wind direction is very bad around that corner. So it’s worth being careful with boats and rigs tonight. It’s probably the worst conditions for the equipment, and keeping it all together until we pass the corner is critical.

All the best from

Knut