Race 12 - Day 7, Fri June 25th   

3am arrived and I have to admit to being slightly relieved when I heard I wouldn't be needed on deck. We reverted back to our Pacific crewing of just 2 on deck at any one time with a third person on “step-watch” just inside the companionway to act as comms between on-deck and off-deck crew.  I used the time in between to finish the edit of our weekly video and to check our position against the other boats.  It was clear early on that having gained miles, since we'd reduced our sail area we were now losing out to some of the other boats.  Over the course of the night Team Finland had overtaken us and Jamaica had increased their lead over us. This was not good as both these are teams we need to beat and by several places if we are to try and improve out standings in the overall race.

The wind eases off slightly during the day and the Yankee 3 makes it's first appearance on deck for quite some time as we get some more sail up. We are not doing the speeds of 24 hours ago and in the more moderate winds we are wallowing at the mercy of the still huge waves.

By the time we come onto watch this afternoon we are chomping at the bit to get some more sail area up but within half an hour the wind increases from 20 knots to 35 knots and we start trucking again.  The drama of the night before takes a little of the fight out of some of the crew and we know we have to work hard to get back into the race mode again.

The scheds this evening show that Jamaica have increased their lead slightly over us to 27 miles and Team Finland are now in front of us by 25 miles. We have just under 600 miles of the race to run so a good chance of reeling them back in again and as we know ourselves only too well – a high pressure can always sneak in and throw a googly that could turn the race results completely on their head.  It's all still to play for – we just have to keeping play hard!!!