Well the last 36 hours have been a touch ‘busy’ to say the least.  Our first test was a faulty water pump needing attention. Although we’re not completely dependent on the powered pump it does make life simpler so Windy, Doc’ and Roddy spent a few happy hours upside down in the engine room playing with assorted widgets until it started working again – a relief for all but most especially for those who might have had to smell us coming into Sydney having had no showers for a few days... Their top-tip for any of you finding yourselves in a similar position is to not drop the 13mm spanner into the bottom of the engine compartment – getting it back took almost as long as the repair.

‘Houston we have a problem’ – Apollo 13.

Our next puzzler has proved a little tougher to work out.  While all three yachts were (separately) making way towards the finish under engine due to an almost dead calm we gave the engine a routine break to cool and be checked over.  All seemed well until we tried to restart it.... nothing. Zilch. Zip. Nada.  After a few hours of spannering from assorted crew members led by Windy (this is a Royal Engineer crew – no-one was going to be left out!) and the other skippers by HF radio (a truly team effort, thanks for the assist chaps) the diagnosis was that the solenoid on the starter motor had packed in.  To quote Murray’s simple assessment “That’s bad”.  The solenoid is a sealed item and not one that we can repair at sea.  Without a spare there is no chance of getting the engine running again.  A hurried conversation via Sat-Phone with JSASTC, the yacht’s base in the UK informed us happily that there is a spare. Hurrah! On the Navy Boat “Adventurer”. 80 miles behind us. Hurroo.  Now as we were bobbing around discussing options and glumly considering having to wait for the RN to catch us up (ouch!) the breeze finally filled in and we were off again.  This is a sailing yacht and until the wind dies out totally we were determined to keep fighting on even at depressingly slow speeds.  Since then the wind has built considerably and backed round to an excellent angle for fast sailing – we’re back in!  The on-deck teams have been having considerable fun sail handling and we’ve had 5 life-jackets inflate as teams find themselves awash while setting sails (This isn’t too much of a drama as we have tonnes of spares but it makes the fore-deck ‘interesting’).  As we write this the instruments in front of us are routinely showing over 40 knots and often up to 45 knots, we’re blasting down waves with grins of excitement all around (or is that fixed grins of fear?). As we surf the speeds rise rapidly and we’ve a new record for this trip, the weather isn’t due to last long though and we suspect we’ll be back to coaxing every knot we can out ‘Challenger’ but for now we’re making the most of every gust. 

As an aside it’s worth noting everything else that happens around these key events; most of us will only pass this way just this once so we’re all making the most of every experience, sight and sound.  Over the last few days we’ve been sailing due east which gives the 0400 – 0800 deck-watch a pretty much guaranteed seat at some of the most amazing RED sunrises you could imagine, we’ve also seen huge schools of dolphins, pods of minke whales, a great many sea-birds (almost all, according to Roddy, “baby albatrosses”) and we’ve even offered hospitality to a passing swallow who seemed pretty please to take a short breather on our rig...

Back on the boat the succession of Mother-Watches keep raising the bar with recent endeavours having turned out some pretty impressive loafs of bread, Eddy and the gang from Dick have been churning out brilliant chillies and even some home-made muffins, “Great stuff”!

Everyone’s pretty much tied up with finishing so ‘shout outs’ are a bit limited tonight however I’m told to say ‘Scooby says hi!’, ‘I hope Becca’s birthday went as can be expected....’ and Roddy has asked for Ladybird or Observer book of sea birds for Christmas....