Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s hard work repairing his broken battens was all to no avail:’ In one of those heavy wind and rain squalls I reefed the mainsail and whilst I was hauling the clew in ,  every single one of the repaired battens broke again.  The internal splint I used just broke.  So back to square one on this.’

With 8,653 miles to go to Fremantle, the Velux 5 Oceans solo , two stop round the world race’s first port of call, Sir Robin’s Open 60 Saga Insurance is drifting, but at least it is in the right direction. ‘But we are lacking power. This drifting around in a race is driving me up the wall, so I need  to get something sorted and get moving properly again,’ he said.

Meanwhile one autopilot is playing up: ‘The port auto pilot has definitely gone senile.   In a calm patch I switched over to it but all it could do was flash its screen on and off and squeak.   No message at all.   That is beyond me.’
 
But there are some lighter moments: ‘Dolphins swimming with us last night.   Could not see them as it was so dark,  but  I  could hear them.   These squalls give warning by heavy black cloud.   If they have rain then they have strong winds, and that means gusting 30 knots or more.   The rain is freezing which is quite nice actually. Thats it, back to the workshop after a nice cup of tea!’