Dinshaw Avari recounts the events which have slowed JAMAICA's progress

With 815 miles to go to the finish line in Qingdao JAMAICA was still retaining a narrow lead at 06:00 today as they sail off the Eastern cost of Taiwan.

This is in spite of a number of catastrophic events which the crew have had to deal with. Crew member Dinshaw Avari has just sent this exclusive message to jamaicaclipper.com to explain what has happened and has resulted in their slow progress :

February 9th

In the last 72 hours we've been hit with a series of unfortunate events :

1. The sheath of the main halyard came out and we switched it to the topping lift by going up the mast

2. Then the Yankee 2 sheet snapped - we replaced it by going up to the clew

3. Early this morning our Yankee 3 clew completely ripped in a Force 8 storm (40 knots)

4. Finally the top most batten came out and Simon went up to retrieve it, we brought back the sail and put it back

All this really slowed us down but no excuses,

DINSHAW

Bearing in mind the adverse weather and the difficult conditions on board we are really grateful to Dinshaw for taking the time to explain today's events. It's all in the day of an ocean going race team.

The chasing pack is now really closing in on JAMAICA. We wish them better luck than they have experienced in the last 3 days and hope that they can continue to sail safely, proud in their achievement thus far.

Indeed at 12:00 today they were back up to racing speed having sailed 60 miles in the previous 12 hours compared to second place Hull and Humber's 59. However, our lead is down to 9 miles but a lead it still is.

It is interesting to see that Glasgow, which has been nipping at the heels of JAMAICA for such a long time in 2nd place is now in 3rd and 25 miles off the lead. This is clearly a very fast changing part of the race and the fact that Glasgow has lost so much ground is a credit yet again to the strength of character of team JAMAICA who are still out in front. Stick at it guys and girls - only 785 miles to glory!