Well, for the past 24hrs or so, we have been locked into a tight battle with Puma's il Mostro. While sailing within only a few boats lengths of each other at times makes for exciting racing, it also steps up the intensity and work-load onboard, resulting in everyone already being quite physically drained. This is despite the somewhat benign, idyllic trade wind weather that we are currently in.

It is a rather sobering thought for what lays ahead as the performance of all the yachts is very closely matched and I can foresee the remaining 35,000 or so miles left in this race as being full on boat on boat racing.

Having said this though, we are all in very high spirits and happy with E4s performance. Plenty of jokes are being told my only concern aboard is for what King Neptune Carabelli is planning for myself and Blood (Phil Jameson) as we tick off the miles towards the equator. More to report on that one later.

Ryan Godfrey - bowman

Visit www.volvooceanrace.org for all the latest news!

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008 with in-port racing, it will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the history of the race.

Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world's premier yacht race for professional racing crews.