We're a man down today after having to evacuate Tony Mutter off the yacht yesterday. His condition wasn't improving and after seeking medical advice from onshore, the decision was made to get him off.

As we were already reasonably close to the Cape Verde islands, it made for a convenient drop-off point. We organised to meet a fishing boat just off one of the islands. The wind didn't play ball very well though and we ended up fully drifting in 1 knot of wind. When we finally found the boat, Tony got in his survival suit and basically jumped overboard. Very sad for him but better than a full emergency in the middle of the Atlantic later on.

It is hard enough to sail these boats with 10 people and as we were preparing to get racing again, it became obvious that the next 2 weeks is going to be bloody tough without Tony.

It has been a great sail down for the last 4 days. Very funny to go so close to Lanzarote the other night. A few of us talked about popping into our old local pub 'McSorley's', and downing a 'quick six', but it was decided that it would be better if we continued racing.

A couple of us have developed a bad case of 'gunwhale bum' from the salt on the skin. Not a very good look at all and extremely uncomfortable. The need to wash with fresh water after a watch is critical otherwise it could get a bit out of hand.

We figured that we lost about 50 miles during our detour, so we are fighting on as best we can. As we have all seen, anything can happen in sailing so we are just trying to stay in touch with the pack and see how it all pans out.

It's fantastic to see Ericsson 3 battling it out with Team Puma at the front of the pack. Keep the heat on them boys!!

All good otherwise.
Phil Jameson, Ericsson 4.

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.