With almost a week at sea the guys onboard Kosatka have now truly entered 'the zone'; blogs from the boat give a real sense of everyone settling into their own routines. Read all blogs here: http://www.teamrussia.org/en/blog/

Although far from a normal existence, as Mark Covell (Media Crew) writes; "There isn't anything 'normal' about the mad turbo charged boats we are sailing. But on this day, day six, the word that comes to mind most readily is 'normality'. It is starting to feel 'normal' to crawl aft, down on my hands and knees in a thin swirl of water, through the watertight bulkhead and leaver myself into the media station."

For the sailing crew, they are just loving their sail south; Mikey Joubert in his blog today makes it clear why he's doing his 4th Volvo; "Every time I wake up for a watch, it is with excitement because we're in for another 4 hours of sailing that most people would never experience. 20-25 knots of wind and boat speed with full size spinnaker up, short sharp seas and it gets better...... its warm."

Life on board has settled in nicely. It's taken until now for everyone to recover from the seriously stressful passage out of the Med. At the time of writing Team Russia has overtaken Green Dragon, and is now standing in 5th place; close on the heels of Delta Lloyd. The team covered around 470 miles through the water in the last 24 hours; taking in a few gybes, that still leaves an impressive 24-hour run.

With the final fix to the ram boots (fashioned from Mark's shiny new crew bag) and the 24-hour sewing machine epic to fix the spinnaker, the team seems to have got over their initial run of problems. Andreas reports; "The boat is holding together great and (almost) everything is fully operational. The watermaker produces water, winches all working, keel canting, halyard locks holding, quadrants still firm, instruments showing some values", good news for the sailors and the shore team.

Andreas did then go on to reported this morning; "We had a little disaster last night when the massive beanbag we use for sleeping exploded right in the navstation. Snow everywhere, almost a snowstorm. Little snowballs of polystyrene that stick to everything, You find them between your toes, on legs, arms." It looks like Benno will have the sewing machine out again later.

Navigator Wouter's thoughts turn to the unusual wind direction the fleet have been experiencing; "We have been able to go straight south instead of the much longer traditional western route. The east waves are sucking in the wind from all sides, which make the winds so much more northerly than normal. This northerly component gives us a great opportunity to first dive south and get into the stronger trades whilst at the same time giving us a good wind direction to hard west to setup for the Doldrums later," he explains.

Messages of Support

Some wonderful message of support from friends, family and fans from all over the world are being sent to the team through the 'send a message' area in the Team Russia website; http://www.teamrussia.org/en/send-a-message/. The guys on the boat receive an email each day with the messages sent - keep them coming.

Audio, Video and Images

The latest audio MP3 interviews from the team can also been listened to via the team website - look for the audio button on the home page. Audio is right with the image gallery - these pictures are updated as soon as they are released from the boat. The video format has taken a little longer to integrate into our site - but we're hoping to have cracked this by the weekend.

As watch leader Stig Westergaard ponders; "I wonder how the nerve wrecking doldrums are going to affect the temperature onboard? There is nothing as unnerving as being becalmed. So I will get back to you in a couple of days to let you know if we have all jumped ship, committed hara-kiri or are simply dancing joyfully round the mast."

We'll keep you updated with the progress of the good ship Kosatka. Have a great weekend.

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.