It’s 0430 on Sunday morning and it looks like we’re toast. An unexpected but welcome West North Westerly breeze filled in last night and trickled us west down the Channel among an armada of merchant ships – we even had a short race with a Brazilian naval vessel for 15 minutes. For most of the last 24 hours the average speed needed has been hovering around the seven knot mark, easily doable in a boat like Orange. But at about 0100 the tide turned against us and the wind shut down. Orange stopped dead in the water with Bruno Peyron’s trueism that ‘a fast boat without any wind is a slow boat’ ringing in our ears. It was no consolation to hear from Clouds, who has been catnapping by his computer in Sydney for the last 48 hours, to say that the easiest way to get to Ventnor {just 40 miles away at that point) would be to go back around the way we had come! A depressing thought. None of his weather models, none of his computer predictions could see any way for us to get from the system we were running down the North Sea to a new system coming in slowly from the west and bringing South Westerly winds with it. With two hours to go until the record is gone, the average speed needed to It’s 0430 on Sunday morning and it looks like we’re toast. An unexpected but welcome West North Westerly breeze filled in last night and trickled us west down the Channel among an armada of merchant ships – we even had a short race with a Brazilian naval vessel for 15 minutes. For most of the last 24 hours the average speed needed has been hovering around the seven knot mark, easily doable in a boat like Orange. But at about 0100 the tide turned against us and the wind shut down. Orange stopped dead in the water with Bruno Peyron’s trueism that ‘a fast boat without any wind is a slow boat’ ringing in our ears. It was no consolation to hear from Clouds, who has been catnapping by his computer in Sydney for the last 48 hours, to say that the easiest way to get to Ventnor {just 40 miles away at that point) would be to go back around the way we had come! A depressing thought. None of his weather models, none of his computer predictions could see any way for us to get from the system we were running down the North Sea to a new system coming in slowly from the west and bringing South Westerly winds with it. With two hours to go until the record is gone, the average speed needed to sail the last 18 miles has climbed dramatically and to cap it all we are punching tide. Right now we need nine knots over the ground and that figure is starting to climb fast. It’s never over until it’s over, particularly on a boat that can average 25 knots and occasionally hit 40, but with St Catherine’s light clear in the distance and very little wind or any sign of it, we are finally forced to accept that we came close. But, in the end, after nearly six days of hard and tiring sailing, we have missed out on claiming the Round Britain and Ireland Record set by Steve Fossett and Lakota back in 1994. Fair play to the man. This is Andrew Preece from Orange: over and out and looking for breakfast.