Flew back to Durban following my dad's funeral (a big thanks to John and Kathy for their help in Jo'burg, both ways) and rejoined the yacht the day before the race.

John Toshack was in the departure lounge at Schiphol Airport. He was flying to Durban for the Fifa conference for the world cup.

Toshack is a footballing legend and played for Cardiff City until 1970 when he signed for Liverpool. Alongside Kevin Keegan they were the best strike force in football.

Following his football career he went into management with [amongst others] Swansea City, Sporting Lisbon and Real Madrid, and is the current manager of the Welsh national team.

Cheerio to Helen, Richard and Neil and hello to Traoloch, Mat and Shaun for the next leg to Fremantle. Race starts tomorrow.

As soon as we are in we are whisked off for a 'traditional' welcome:

and a photo of the crew at the award ceremony:

Still in close proximity, we are still ahead of Glasgow with only a few miles to go. Everyone is on deck and squeezing every inch of speed out of the yacht.

Three miles south of the finish line we gybe shortly after Glasgow and, with only three or four boat lengths separating us, we race for the finish - what an end to the race and what a frantic last few days.

Fortunately we cross the finish line before them and have the added bonus of beating Hull & Humber into 2nd place as a result of their 4-hour time penalty for using their engine during a medivac earlier in the race.

We are met by a few boats from the yacht clubs in Durban who pass over a cool bag with some beers. Ice cold beer, the end of a fantastic race and time to party!

Well done to all the Glasgow crew who gave us such a fantastic race. After 4,500 miles of ocean racing, we came in 1 minute, 17 seconds before them - awesome, well done guys!

Racing neck and neck with Glasgow, downwind at night in a squall, extremely poor visibility, 30 knots of wind, heavyweight spinnaker flying and on an inward gybe (towards land). Moving the spinnaker pole forward the guy slips on the winch and the pole crashes into the forestay, twice, and shatters!

The lazy guy comes off the lazt winch and we have a heavyweight kite - attached only by it's halyard to the top of the mast - flailing around in 30+ knots of wind, pandemonium!

A fantastic effort by all the crew to bring it under control and we manage to drop the kite and pole out the Yankee 2 in record time.

The squall clears and miraculously we see Glasgow half-a-mile behind us!

What a race!

Pretty much neck and neck with Glasgow all the way for the last 200 miles. They overtake us, we catch and overtake them, same again... adrenalin pumping, constant trim, trying to get every advantage over the other boat. What a finish this is turning out to be.

Still in 3rd place we cross into the shallower water of the Agulhas bank.

Durban and Glasgow are around 40 nm behind us and we're approximately 100 miles behind the leaders Hull & Humber and New York.

We need to stay close into shore all the way to Durban as the current is northerly and can flow at up to 6 knots in places: lose the wind and you go backwards!

One day of light winds and we are pretty much neck and neck with Durban and Glasgow!

At watch change, I come on deck and Glasgow are in front on the horizon and Durban are 300 metres off the starboard beam!! Race on!

A few gybes later and fortunately we lose Durban (they went on an outward gybe, lost the wind and the current kicked in - they finished 8th!) and gain on Glasgow, overtaking them in the night.

Moving slowly up through the fleet, we are in 3rd place (behind Hull & Humber and New York who are on similar longitude but are 100 nm north of us.

We headed south to pick up the stronger westerly winds and hope this will make a big difference for the finish.

We get down below 40 degrees south and do pick up some nice winds . Gusts of up to 55 knots on some of the days but generally we find we're downwind in gale force winds for around 9 days - happy days and superb sailing. Awesome seas, strong winds and some speed records are the norm. Eleni hold sthe current speed record of 23.7 knots - fantastic!

Start heading NE to head towards the Southern edge of South Africa and the agulhas bank/

Visited by a couple of ghosts today to mark Halloween. Forthuately they weren't too scarey and came bearing gifts

After a pleasant stay in Salvador we saw Tomo, Peter Nuttall and Chris Pearce depart and Eleni, Helen, Alex, Kev and Richard join us for the next leg to Durban.

A three o'clock start and we're off. Once again, all the boats are in close proximity but quickly split into two distinct groups with us, Hull & Humber and New York heading southerly and the remainder staying on a more northerly course.

Our plan on this leg is to stay away from the Ilse de Trinidade as light winds are forecast in a few days time and to get the benefit of the coastal current to take us south before heading SE towards Tristan de Cunha to pick up the strong westerlies.

10th place for the first week or so, we have moved into 5th by the 2nd December (no panic there )

Brucey has turned up on the yacht Lady Francesca which he is skippering on a circumnavigation and invited us down to the boat for a bbq on the Bank Holiday Monday.

The only provision is that we need to get some food and some beer for the barbie.

Now, the beer is easy as you can pick that up from service stations, the food on the other hand is not quite so easy as all the shops are shut.

Lisa and I are walking past the jetty where they unload the fish and we go over and Lisa starts to enquire about the price of the Red Snapper that they are unloading (and these are big fish).

The prices are starting at $100 US or thereabouts. At this point, Akmed walks over and also starts to engage in the bartering. The price drops to about 20 Reals per pound until the head man sees Akies watch. After a quick look, a try on the wrist, he agrees to swap the fish for the watch.

Walking quickly away Akie tells us the watch he swapped was not the expensive one he bought in La Rochelle but one he bought the other day from a street-vendor's suitcase - for the grand some of 15 Reals around £3.50.