Leap year blues on board JAMAICA

As the image above shows team JAMAICA have rounded the Southern tip of Japan and are now bearing down on the rest of the fleet in the Pacific ocean en route to Hawaii.

It's fair to say that we've got them seriously worried. None of the other 9 Clippers are aware of our secret tactics and are wondering what we've got up our sleeve. Little do they know that to be 150 miles off the lead and playing a watching brief at the back of the fleet is actually what we had planned before setting off from Qingdao, oh yes!

The spinnaker wrap which put us effectively out of competitive racing for 24 hours was a smokescreen and they'll be laughing on the other side of their faces when we come in first in Hawaii. For those doubters amongst you - we will be reminding you on 20th March that you read it here first - JAMAICA WILL WIN. There's still over 3,500 miles and a lot of racing to go.

Ahead the fleet is splitting to follow two different approaches as the graphic shows :

There are two options to choose from for the onboard tacticians on the ten internationally-backed yachts competing in Clipper 07-08:

Go further north, cover more miles but stay with better wind strength and angles; this is a tactic currently being pursued by overall race leader Durban, Western Australia, Qingdao and Nova Scotia or

take a more direct route with fewer miles but with the potential for lighter winds and also headwinds, which is the option current race leader Hull & Humber, New York, Glasgow, Liverpool and Singapore are taking.

Only time will tell which tactic will prove to be the winning one. The speeds posted overnight seem to suggest that the more direct route has gained the greater number of miles and the tacticians on board JAMAICA will be watching both options very carefully.

But back to the leap year : we understand from our web cam on board JAMAICA that we have some very worried bachelors on board today. What could there be more romantic than in the middle of an ocean having a gorgeous Lady grasp the leap year opportunity and propose to her hapless beau ? Knees trembling (due to the constant rolling of the boat not in expectation!) she pops the question and back comes the response - "just one sugar thanks, no milk".

Whoever said romance is dead?