Green Dragon fourth after rain cloud encounter

11:17 AM Sun 23 Nov 2008 GMT

'Guo Chuan/Green Dragon Racing/Volvo Ocean Race.
Green Dragon's broken boom has a new home' Volvo Ocean Race &copy Click Here to view large photo

Volvo Ocean Race. GREEN DRAGON, Leg Two, Day 9. Received 23.11.08 0923 GMT

It is amazing that only three days ago the clothing call was thermals, boots, gloves, crash helmets and double fleece sleeping bags and now we are happily in shorts, UV tops, shoes, sunhats and sun cream.

The wildlife has changed too with no birds following us and certainly no albatrosses, but flying fish occasionally peppering the decks. The water temperature has more than doubled and so too has the air.

What hasn't changed is the intensity of the racing and the top four boats are within a couple of hours of each other with the others not far behind that. This is pretty amazing considering what I am sure all the teams have been through in the last week.

For those watching on the internet the distance to the finish should start to mean something now as we start to head almost directly for Cochin. We have had a frustrating last 24 hours as we got caught to windward of a huge rain cloud in the transition to the trade winds. For over an hour we didn't have a ripple on the water and all we could see on the position reports was everyone else, both right and left of us, in wind.

This cost us and ERT 4 20 to 30 miles as we were on a similar line but it has also cost us third place. For the next 1000 miles, we will be reaching along in the trade winds and nothing too much should change apart from those boats with an edge in these conditions should grind out more miles. We will sit tight try and keep up the pressure and aim to focus on the doldrums where we did so well on leg 1.

Amazingly, we are still going well with no boom and when we have the mainsail set up it looks good - the problems are when we need to react quickly to shifts or gusts as we have about four sheets hanging off it! The back of the boat looks like a cat's cradle. We are still undecided about whether to try to repair the broken boom but the sentiment is swinging in favour of toughing it out as we are.

Repairing it could be more of a distraction than it is worth, especially as any repaired boom will be far from 100%.

Ian Walker - skipper

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Green Dragon fourth after rain cloud encounter

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