"Last night was fast and furious again with a top speed of 25.3 knots, a best for this trip and for this boat. I can feel the effects of the high pressure system now and the barometer is starting to rise. It's going to be very close to make it through before the high develops here. I spotted my first albatross for this trip early this morning. They are magnificent birds and seem so at home here in the southern ocean. They soar around, doing a wheeling pattern into the trough of the waves and up high and back down again, only flapping their wings occasionally. I watched one last trip for over five minutes and it never flapped it's wings once, gliding on it's huge wings and relying on the wind between the waves to keep going. I'm wondering if they can do this wheeling and soaring pattern in their sleep. I've read that they will spend months at sea and never touch land."   
Derek Hatfield (Algimouss-Spirit of Canada) in his daily log

 

"To be overtaken by somebody who is on their fifth lap of the planet is not too bad to be honest. You can really see the difference between the guys who have done it before and the rest of us. Look at Bernard. He is clearly more at ease with the conditions down here so would not have had any qualms about putting more sail up. It is not nice to lose miles to these guys but in a funny way, it gives you confidence.  It is hard to relax. I am playing my Ipod pretty loud at the moment. Before I left I loaded a new album on that I had never listened to before - by The Script. I absolutely love it so I'm listening to that every day. If I want a singalong, I play Nickelback and reckon I am singing louder than the noise the boat makes. I had a couple of days when I freaked out a bit and was super sensitive about everything.  I phoned my boyfriend Harry in a flurry of tears. It was a combination of everything - I was in the south. It was full on and it would be like this for a while. I had never done this before and I was on my own. Its fine now but I just had a small panic I think, which is a bit weird because I am enjoying it."
Dee Caffari (Aviva) in her daily message

 

"The wind has eased off and it is more stable now.  Life is good on board.  I haven't broken anything. Today, 6th December is a special day in Austria. It's St. Nick's Day and we all eat chocolate.  I'm sleeping well and eating well. I'm sure the weather will steadily worsen."
Norbert Sedlacek (Nauticsport-Kapsch) on today's radio session.  We can hope that Norbert is behaving himself, as in the German version of the story, Knecht Ruprecht accompanies St. Nick to punish or even eat bad children!

 

"Here on planet "Grey" (grey skies, grey sea) all is well. There are still 30-35 knots of wind and Roxy is rocketing along! A funny thing happened last night. I was sleeping in my usual bed (now in hat and gloves I have to mention) at the chart table, and I was awoken by the sound of a waterfall! I quickly remembered where I was and which way was forward.  During this time I managed to realise that we were a little bit on our side and the waterfall noise was coming from the hatchway. In fact, the waterfall was coming IN the hatch! So, what had happened was that Roxy had got picked up and "dumped" by a breaking wave, and the aforementioned wave had the cheekiness to break itself not only into the cockpit, but right into my cabin! Initially, it was quite scary to wake up to that, but actually it was perfectly harmless, just a bit damp. The inconvenience of it all was that I had to get out of bed and wade around in my wellies with the bilge pump to remove the  Southern Ocean from my, once dry, floor. One small positive point is that my two buckets had been sitting in firing range and the wave had obediently filled them both up, so at least that was a little bit less work with the sponge!"
Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message

"The wind has arrived and the speed is rising.  I'm doing 20 / 21 knots! It was a busy night with lots of sail changes. Went through the whole range!  I think I'm in a good position to get through the next gate with an interesting wind angle.  The drawback with this option is that it is freezing down here! When I carried out manoeuvres in the night, my fingers were numb.  I'm down at 47° south so close to the icebergs. I shan't be going down any further, as the satellites have spotted huge blocks of ice at 47°30 S.  In 3 hours, I'll be in the Indian Ocean."
Jean-Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) talking to his shore team this morning

 

The first competitors passed the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope this morning. Sébastien Josse (BT) was the first to signal he had passed the Cape at 07h40 UTC. He was followed by Yann Elies (Générali) at 08h50 UTC, and Loïck Peyron at 09h28 UTC.