Good morning Black Betty fans, you join me in the nav station just before sunrise, after a glorious night of tropical sailing, and for the first time in several days I am writing my blog without the fear of killing the keyboard with perspiration.

For the first night since starting this race we have had steady, albeit gentle trade winds all night. With the wind finally filling from the south east our first Kite hoist of this leg happened early evening, with the Code 1 making its way out of the bag in prime teaching conditions of 6 to 8 knots of true wind. There has been some squall activity, but mercifully we have managed to avoid being trapped like yesterday.

The current prevailing conditions are absolutely perfect for our joining Leg 5 crew to get to grips with kite sailing. Cycling through all positions deck, we have had some excellent coaching from existing crew. One of the things that we highlighted in our debriefs at the end of the last leg was the need to increase the level of crew on crew training, and we are certainly achieving that at present. The more time we invest in training, the better we should perform, well that's the plan anyway! The level of experience and knowledge that has been acquired since the team left London last year is enormous, to highlight a few bits of excellent coaching in the last day, Round the World (RTW) crew members Kiwi (previously known as Paul W) and Kaz have been delivering some excellent sessions on the helm, Rach (aka the Donkey Doctor) has been doing some great chats on kite trimming and I listened in to RTW'er Paul M giving a very thorough brief on our steering system, and the daily checks that are required. In only our 6th day sea on this leg I can already see the Leg 5 team developing nicely.

After more than 100 hours of racing we can still see five of the other yachts in the fleet on our nav screen. With only a handful of miles separating fourth to ninth place every point of knot counts. To still be in touch with half the fleet is rather unusual, but as we all have to pass through the Doldrums gates the fleet was always going to converge at this point on the race course, not that I'm complaining, having other boats all around us is great for motivation. Gains and losses are clearly visible to the naked eye, not just represented by little pictures of boats on a screen and numbers on our run sheets. When you can physically see that you have gained on another team it helps keep the crew pushing for that extra one percent.

For me as the Skipper, it's a double, no wait, a triple-edged sword. Having other teams in sight, as I've already said, really does help to keep motivation high, to trim well, and steer straight and true, on the flip side of this race positions can change in the blink of an eye. The third edge to this triple edged blade is our proximity to other yachts. Normally with nothing but open ocean, and the odd fleeting sight of one or two of the other teams, we have the sea room to do maneuvers with time and space but in the current situation we need to be aware of how close multiple boats are to us. A gap of several miles can disappear very quickly if you take your eye off the ball.

The next 480 miles between the two doldrums gates are going to be very interesting from a tactical point of view, but I don't want to give anything away. For now we are hoping for the wind to continue to be steady in strength and direction to help us continue to work our way down the racetrack and up the leaderboard.

Black Betty OUT!

P.S. Mountain check your email junk folder.