Andrew Preece Yachting World’s Racing Editor, who’s on board the maxi cat Orange filming for APP, last night spoke about the conditions they expected to encounter as they headed for the northernmost point at the Shetland Islands

The calms last night were replaced by 30-35 knot winds from the south-east that have rocketed boat speed up to between 25 and 30 knots. We expect the wind to increase overnight as the low tracks north and squeezes the isobars; once we round St Kilda we need to come up around 20 degrees and if the wind picks up to the mid 30s as expected there will be tales to tell by dawn!

In the last couple of hours we got ourselves back on track for the record and are now slightly ahead. However, the forecast is predicting a long and windy 500-mile beat south from the Shetlands that would be slow and uncomfortable so we need to keep driving over the next night to give ourselves a chance to get ahead of the record average in case our worst fears are realised and we turn the corner south into something painful!