Long, hot, sticky, revolting day at the office. The air conditioner is broken, the drinks cooler is empty and warm, humidity is stifling and of course the lift is broken as well so you have to carry everything up and down stairs a hundred times. And to make matters worse, the competition has just struck a deal and launched out ahead of you in a flash.

Sounds familiar? That about sums up today. Things were looking pretty good before daybreak, we had a good position relative to the boats in front of us and behind us and we had our sights set on our next goal – Dalts [Grant Dalton]. We managed to sneak up behind the boys on Amer Sports One and play cat and mouse in the clouds for a few hours, we even got over them at one stage – wish I had taken a picture. Then the wind shut out completely. It was hot and rolly with the sails flapping in annoyance in the absence of wind, so all of the sails on the rail got moved below and in each puff they would get moved back up again and then down again when the wind dropped again, boring and repetitive but it works.

The boys slid away this afternoon, their light air spinnaker seemed to work better then ours. At the same time all this was going on, the leaders missed this massive cloud and were off like robbers’ dogs. They are now some 60 miles away; we’ve got the boys 10 miles ahead now and djuice trying to sneak under us with SEB hot on our heels. So we’ve got our work cut out at the moment.

Got to go

Lisa McDonald