One week in the race so far and it is fantastic, I can highly recommend it to everyone who loves sailing. Delta Lloyd is competitive with a first generation boat. With the next race already announced, go out, get one and play in the next race. It is really close racing out here, I promise, every three hours you see how you are doing, and that will be going on for month.

Had a little disaster last night when the massive bean bag we use for sleeping exploded right in the navstation. Snow everywhere, almost a snowstorm. Little snowballs of polystyrene that adhere to everything, You find them between your toes, on legs, arms. I use little ziplock bags to collect them, hope Benno (Ben Costello) will fix it later.

The boat is holding together great and (almost) everything is fully operational (touch wood). The water maker produces water, winches all working, keel canting, halyard locks holding, quadrants still firm, instruments showing some values, etc.. Thank you all to our shore crew for your patience over the last months and putting in the incredible effort of getting the boat back together. Looking forward to seeing you all in Cape Town.

We are happy how we are doing. Still in close contact with the fleet, there were no real passing lanes so far, except for Delta. They played the Capes of Africa perfectly and gained with every move, well done. Puma and both Ericsson's are just very solid, glad they can't extend their lead at the moment. One hundred miles means just 5 hours, that's acceptable. Wonder why Green Dragon lost miles over the last two scheds, they had the most breeze in the fleet. We don't get any more information here other than positions and wind data at the time of the report.

Cheers,
Andreas Hanakamp - skipper.

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.