"A nervous anticipation is in the air for the sailors, the boats and the race direction as well as all of you watching at home, I am sure. After spending 38 days in the southern Ocean, Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn, all celebrations go on hold as we await a storm hurtling towards us from the Pacific. Strategy to avoid the worst of the weather has been discussed by the skippers involved, the race direction and Meteo France. Thankfully we all agreed on the same course of action. The aim is to hang out around Cape Horn and the centre of the low will pass overhead, then we will experience south east to south west strong winds as we get the cold feel of the west of the low as it tracks east. Slowly with much reduced sail we can follow it from about tomorrow afternoon hoping for it to move ahead of us. This should hopefully see us miss the worst of the weather. I am currently 30 miles off the Chilean coast seeing glaciers and mountains reaching into the sky. It really is an awesome sight. I am being heading quite dramatically at the moment, which may be a sign of things moving a little faster than expected. I went on deck to trim the sails to upwind and saw numerous dolphins playing around the bow. I haven't seen that sight since the Atlantic so it must be a good sign! With taffeta ribbons streaming from my mainsail, it will be relieved to go into 4 reefs for a rest. I just need to be extra careful with the fibres so they do not get damaged in the blow coming. All being well I should be through the worst of it all late tomorrow night. In the mean time it will be a testing twenty four hours, then we can celebrate Cape Horn."
Dee Caffari (Aviva) in her daily message
 

"Hello everyone from a very bumpy S Atlantic Ocean! First of all I would like to let everyone (especially the French) know that, although I admit us Brits have a strange taste in food, I did not eat the seaweed. Nor did I do a DIY Thalasso with it! I just swore at it a lot and threw it back where it belongs! The thought of smearing that slimy stuff all over my body makes me cringe! Now, I am struggling to accept the fact that I seem to be going upwind back up the same Atlantic that I went upwind down..... that's just not fair. Although I mustn't complain, as compared to my friends at Cape Horn suffering a horrible storm,this is nothing! Today has been very very bumpy as Roxy is going through warm water current eddies and we have had 25-30 knots of wind all day. Yet again I have been wearing my lunch rather than eating it, and I even gave up trying to make my afternoon cup of tea! But luckily there have been no giant kelp attacks today, nor manoeuvres, except trimming and easing with the gusts (a wet job!) so I have had some time to get some much needed rest. There is a small mystery though.... someone has stolen my headtorch and one sock. I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled to catch the culprit before anything else goes missing..."
Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message
 

"Unfortunately we all think of the Horn as the end of the big seas and gales, but for me, Dee and Arnaud it is not going to be the case. The biggest storm so far is barrelling across the Pacific to reach Cape Horn at midday Friday. It is going to give very strong winds until well north of the Falklands, so it is unavoidable, unless it decides to calm down of its own accord. I have been following it for a while and I believe it was the tropical gale that affected JP Dick near New Zealand, and then swung into the roaring forties and joined the procession of depressions. Steve White is getting some strong winds from it now, in its early stages. It is really quite disappointing to have to deal with another big gale, but I just have to get as prepared as possible and try to avoid the worst of the conditions. Unlike the last gale it won’t be downwind, there will be upwind in northerlies at first and then reaching in strong westerlies, so it will be tougher on the boat, which I don’t like. I am going to do some extra work to the bow repair once in the calmer conditions past the Cape, and also work on my iridium open port communication system that stopped working in the last gale. As I approached the coast I gybed around some islands that were 6 miles out of position relative to what is drawn on the computer chart. Rather scary as these are small, unlit islands, so very dangerous at night. So mixed emotions on BTP, enjoying the spectacular scenery of the end of the world, and of getting close to rounding the Horn, but also apprehensive of the next 3 days. I do want to get through with no more breakages, and then to be able to race properly again up the Atlantic to the finish."
Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar) in a message sent yesterday evening before he rounded the Horn at 04.15 GMT
 

After two months of work in the yard in Les Sables d’Olonne to get the boat back in shape after she was dismasted the day after the start, Kito de Pavant is going to be getting back together with his red monohull to prepare the 2009 season. The boat left Les Sables d’Olonne by road on Tuesday evening to be transported to the Mediterranean.
 

"Tried the storm jib when it got dark last night, but slowed the boat from 10.5 to 7.5 knots, more than even I could accept and I'm very conservative, so went back to staysail. Staysail is too big on the boat, need one smaller as there is too big of a gap between it and storm jib. In front part of new low being spun off of the main low. The forecast seems to change relatively significantly each iteration. Had 2 naps just now, about 1 hour each, last one seemed like 10 minutes. I don't feel very calm right now, very tense and stressful, a lot of load on the boat, and I'm very alone down here in the south and in the middle. Trying to be very careful with everything."
Rich Wilson (Great American III) in his daily message

"Well, yesterday evening was hard work! I was just thinking that now the upwind work has started, things will become quieter - I may even get bored.... That was a mistake to think that, because just as I picked up my book, Roxy lurched and slowed instantly from 10 to 8 knots.... So, I got out my endoscope to inspect what "cling-ons" we had picked up, and discovered that we had been attacked by a forest of giant Kelp! I spent an hour doing back downs (after four years of Figaro I'm good at that) but to no avail. The kelp was probably as long as Roxy as the branches trailed beyond the transom (from around the keel!) I managed to wrestle a bit of it off with the boathook and my hands (disgusting!) So, I realised that I may have to take an earlier bath than planned to free us from our "cling-on"! I stopped Roxy by dropping all the sails - the first time since the two months of the race that Roxy has stopped! I waited to see if this would clear the kelp and had another look with the endoscope - Yes! The forest has gone - thank goodness - no swimming for me today. So, after a lot of exercise (and 2 hours of down-time), I got Roxy up and running again - kelp-free and 2 knots faster! I was totally knackered, I managed to eat an 800 calorie meal, a bar of chocolate and drink pretty much an entire bottle of water! Hopefully today I will not have so many adventures - in fact I am actually quite looking forward to being bored..."
Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message