His frustration and self doubt at having to throttle back was vindicated five hours later when a 45-knot squall and a deluge of water passed overhead. It may only have lasted five minutes, but if the crew had found themselves over-canvassed with headsails up, their spinnaker would have disintegrated spelling disaster with more than 30,000 miles still left in the Clipper 07-08 Race.

The fleet is now clear of the Cape Verde Islands and the next time they see land it will be a whole different continent – South America. Although many people have sailed across the Atlantic, most do it at its narrowest part, island group to island group. For nearly all of these non-professional sailors on board the Clipper yachts, this will be a first in many ways; first ocean crossing, longest time at sea, furthest south and furthest west they ever sailed and soon, the first time they have crossed the Equator. The Equator crossing represents a centuries-old milestone for sailors, when the world seemed a smaller place, and it is no less significant an achievement today.

Since time gone by, sailors have prayed to the wind gods and to the god of the sea, Neptune, for safe passage in his realm, and in particular for speedy passage in that tricky area sitting around the Equator known as the Doldrums (or more scientifically now, the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone). On Glasgow: Scotland with style Clipper they have already started to offer up a prayer: “We have raced hard for two weeks, clawed back a podium spot and now as we approach the start of the ITCZ, the race could be anybody’s… so if you are out there wind gods, we really have been very good aboard the black boat and Neptune, we have some quality offerings! Every little helps!”

If we are to be a little more scientific about it, the ITCZ is actually a shifting zone slightly north of the Equator, starting at approximately 6 degrees north, which puts the leading pair approximately a day away. All the skippers will have been studying the shifting windless zone for some weeks and looking for the best place to cross through to the steady trade winds. Although they have made further gains on the rest of the fleet in the last 12 hours, we may start to see Durban 2010 and Beyond and Nova Scotia slowing down and the other boats bunching up behind them. This will be frustrating for the front two as they watch their hard earned lead diminish but exhilarating for the rest of the fleet and no less so for those of us watching from home.

The first two schedules of today have seen Liverpool 08 closing in on their other English rival, Hull & Humber, so now there is just 13 nautical miles between them, with westernaustralia2011.com chasing them both down. Qingdao’s eastern passing of the Cape Verdes seemed to have paid off overnight but the gap between them has opened up again today. Although they appear further south on the Race Viewer they are further east than their rivals and therefore have more distance to travel to the finish in Salvador.

The battle continues at the back of the fleet between Jamaica and Uniquely Singapore. The boat speeds across the fleet have all dropped to single digits now as the predicted lighter airs drifting off the west African coast make their presence felt.