Cam Lewis and the crew of American maxicat Team Adventure will be hoping to spend the night in stationary beds, 82 days and about 28,000nm after leaving Barcelona. With 197 miles left to run at 0800 this morning, she is making 14 knots straight at Marseilles and, as the sea breezes fill in later in the afternoon, there’s every chance she could arrive earlier.

They will be eager to get back as soon as possible to get treatment for crew member Jacques Vincent. The French multihull and Whitbread veteran has been suffering with depression and abdominal pains for several days and a telephone consultation has ruled out appendicitis. Vincent is currently rattling with antibiotics and anti-depressants.

“We can keep him comfortable with medication but we’re putting the hammer down to get into Marseilles as soon as we can,” said Lewis. “Nobody wants to stop – and that makes perfect sense because soon we know our lives will be different. Having made two stops already, there won’t be any culture shock but even so, we’ve lost contact with our families’ and friends’ lives, the smile of civilisation and all the mad things we call normal life: traffic jams, newspapers. Perhaps we will follow Moitessier’s example, pull a 180° and find a beautiful island somewhere…?

“What seems incredible now, is that we have almost completed our grand tour of the planet on this massive machine – something many believed impossible. After checking round the boat this morning, we have very little in the way of damage. With some fuel and fresh food, we’d be ready to go again.”

Warta Polpharma’s crew are working round the clock to make sure they can chase Team Legato back across the Atlantic and all the way back to Marseilles. Even though the Multiplast experts overseeing repairs have estimated three days as the least possible down time, they have almost no hope of beating the 2 April deadline, after which the finish line closes.

Team Legato has found another hole and is wallowing 250 miles off South America’s most easterly promontory, making a feeble 1.3kn. Is Bullimore sandbagging to wait for the Poles to come out fighting? It’s possible but race router Sandy Fesq believes Bullimore has stayed too close to the coast, missing the stronger breezes further east. Right now, all he can do is head north as fast as possible and wait for the breeze to build.

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