Crew member Adrienne Cahalan reports from Maiden II as the maxi-cat hurtles its way towards breaking Playstation’s record:

“At the end of hour number 4 we had covered unofficially 131nm at course 105T, this is an average of 32.75kts. We are working hard to put miles in the bank because sea conditions are getting a little more difficult as the wind increases, and soon it will be dark for around 8 hours and harder for the drivers to see the waves.

We have 5 drivers who are rotating around about every hour and the trimmers are working within their normal watches of 4 hours on deck. However, we are only sailing with 13 people so everyone really plans to stay up for the 24-36 hours it will take to attempt the record.

At the moment I have not yet been on deck as the time goes very quickly here calculating figures, monitoring the courses and averages and working with our onshore forecasters at Commanders. We have reached now a top speed of 44kts on the GPS over the ground and we blew a window out in the port hull!

You have to be very careful on deck and below because you can get slingshot along the corridors or through the cockpit because the boat is moving so fast and wildly. – After 18.25 hours we have sailed 526 miles (unofficial) so our average is 28.8kts, just inside the record. Still sailing in 18-20kts, flying a hull trying our hardest to beat this record. Everyone is pretty bruised and battered.”