"Boats are all right, it's the men on 'em...", as Conrad wrote once. And he was bloody right, it is the men who man them are responsible for the achievements and failures on board, the boats are nearly the perfect racing machines and we are sailing one of those!

Spirits are high as we approach the Strait, the last gate for those so well-known waters, till we face the Canary Islands and the trade winds, and life goes with the normal tension of a regatta, but we all know it is a long way still to go. We are starting to feel the difference between the Med warm waters and those of the Atlantic, and most of it at night!

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.