"Brr...Brr!! Yes it is that cold. This will be short as I have to take my gloves off to type. I gybed today in pleasant conditions and then spent another 40 minutes moving everything below deck which did help warm me up. It feels strange when you first gybe as it doesn't feel quite right leaning to the other side but you do soon get used to it. I was pleased to head back east again rather than the steady south east course of last night as the sea temperature was at 3 degrees and there was something spooky about today. I just felt unsettled. I couldn't tell you what it was but I constantly kept looking out and then going on deck to check around both onboard Aviva and around in the sea. I then heard the terrible news about Gitana. I am devastated for the Jedi Master and to think he was only up the mast yesterday. It makes my stomach turn to think about it. Aviva is going well and doing a sterling job. Tonight we will be passing south of Prince Edward Island and Marion Island."
Dee Caffari (Aviva ) in her daily message

 

Over the past 24 hours, Dominique Wavre covered the greatest distance  towards the finish of all the fleet.  Currently in 11th place, 233 miles from the leader, between 19h UTC yesterday evening and this evening he covered 382 miles.

 

This afternoon at 16h a special radio link was established with Loïck Peyron (Gitana 80), who explained the circumstances behind the dismasting of his boat.  You can listen to this interview by clicking here and selecting Loïck Peyron (eng)  

 

"I have a very favourable wind which is enabling me to get in some southing. It had dropped to 18 knots this morning but now it’s been boosted to 22, 23 knots. There are messy cross seas and the swell is beam on and the boat’s struggling to get into the groove. It’s often halted by a wave the minute it launches into a surf. The speeds are quite varied and Temenos II is making headway in fits and starts. It requires a great deal of work as regards the sail trimming, which isn’t always easy. When the sea state is good, with a wave on the tail which launches the boat into the surf, you can expect 18 knot average speeds without forcing things too hard. However, the minute the sea state is poor you lose 3 knots straight away. In this instance you really get the feeling that if you force the boat too hard by carrying too much sail aloft, you can cause damage with the violent braking in the waves. Forcing your way through these types of seas isn’t reasonable. You have to try and weave your way through gently when the sea state is poor. As soon as the boat’s making more than 20 knots the rudders scream creating a fairly stressful, sharp noise. I tune the I-pod into my anti-noise earphones and that tones down the noise well and it becomes more bearable.”
Dominique Wavre (Temenos II) talking to his shore team today

 

"Yesterday under spinnaker, I stayed at the helm for a few hours before handing over to the autopilot.  I even managed to get some sleep.  It just goes to show that having a good pilot and knowing how to pace yourself are both sources of success. I'll certainly be going to the south of the Kerguelens. At the moment, there are 25 knots of wind and it feels like there's hardly any. Here things are on a different scale.  Below thirty knots, it feels like there's no wind. I don't hang around out on deck and while I chose a minimalist approach inside I am not complaining.  But it's true that it is very cold. I can see my breath all the time."
Marc Guillemot (Safran) talking to his shore team today

 

"I signed off last time about to do a sail change in a building breeze. I had to roll up and take down the Code 5 in what was by the time I got on deck about 35 knots of wind, which is over the limit for an old sail! This is a perfectly normal procedure, I started rolling the thing up but it got jammed half rolled up and half unrolled! There it was, flogging itself silly at the front of the boat. I went up the front to try and free it up, but the furling drum is right at the end of the bowsprit - I was not going out there I can assure you - there was a big sea and we were surfing at nearly twenty knots sometimes! I taped my big kitchen knife to the deckbrush handle and went up to deal with the problem, which was that the cover of the furling line had wrinkled up like Nora Batty's stockings (a character in a British sitcom-editor) inside the drum, got caught on a cunningly placed spike and wedged itself up very very tightly! Whilst hacking away I took my eye off the ball missed a big wave which we surfed down, and got hosed down the deck, knife in hand, as we buried the bow in the wave in front at high speed - everything went dark, there was a whooshing noise in my ears as they filled up, and I held my breath as water went down my neck right down to my boots, up my nose, up my arms, everywhere. I took some sizeable pieces out of my fingers as I tried to grab stanchions and guardwires on the way past - the force of the water was incredible and I still have the bruises to testify! When I came to a stop at the mast I had managed to keep hold of the knife luckily! I had several goes at cutting away at the drum, rolling and unrolling the sail; I cut forty five metres of cover of the rest of the line with a pair of scissors on my hands an knees, and still it was up there, half in, half out and flogging like nobody's business. After nearly three hours I decided it had to be dropped on deck as it was whilst I still had a mast! I sailed as far downwind as I dared without gybing, and went for it - first time I aborted and winched it up again before it went in the water, then second time I had it on an "inboard roll" of the boat - it was there on deck, coming down, coming down, then,outboard roll - whoosh, over the side, in the water. The boat stopped short and rounded up into the wind with a parachute handbrake over the side. There followed another two hours of struggling as I tried to get the thing back onboard, but things were going badly wrong - bent stanchions, then the first rip, then around the keel - the stuff of nightmares. I finished up dragging the thing off the bowsprit after trying to save the boltrope for my poor old broken gennaker, but I couldn't get the thing out of the middle of the partially rolled sail. In the end I had to let the thing go before I had to get in the water and get it off the keel. I watched it sink. A twenty thousand pound sail lost because of a hundred pound piece of string with a loose cover. All I had left was the swivel and two thimbles and a ten inch piece of the head.........I don't mind admitting that nearly killed me, I was fairly well beaten up and bruised, and soaked to the skin, and rapidly becoming cold. It was 1400 when I went on deck, and 1915 when I came back down."

Steve White (Toe in the Water) in his daily message