The wind has increased for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet as they make their way in what has been a slow trip so far across the North Atlantic to Portsmouth. As the wind rose to 25 knots today, Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard), who have been piling the pressure on to Brasil 1 (Torben Grael), blew out their big masthead spinnaker, in a costly breakage which will lose them precious miles.

“There was no flogging or luffing, it just parted,” explains skipper Paul Cayard. The Pirates are now having to sail a higher angle with their smaller, reaching sail to try and keep their speed up. Cayard is hoping that the wind will increase by at least two knots, so that the team can fly their fractional spinnaker.

When not breaking gear, downwind sailing with a spinnaker up in 20 knots of wind is most enjoyable sailing in this race. Simon Fisher from ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) says that besides the good conditions the team is now enjoying, an added bonus has been that since they started to slide downwind, they have seen an improvement in their performance and they are now slowly making gains on their rivals.

With breeze of 40 knots or over forecast, anything is possible and the youngsters on ABN AMRO TWO are waiting impatiently for the wind to increase and the fun to begin. “Already, as the winds start to nudge over 20 knots, the waves are getting bigger, the speeds higher and all the gear downstairs is slowly making its way to the back of the boat in order to keep the bow up out of the water,” explains Fisher. It all seems to be working as ABN AMRO TWO has gained six miles in the last period and has averaged a speed of 18 knots.

The plan of attack for the Pirates is to sail to the north east on port tack tonight and then gybe tomorrow morning onto starboard and head east with the south westerly winds coming from a low that is catching up on the fleet. In the position report tonight, the Pirates had gained 12 miles and had overtaken Brasil 1.

Earlier this evening, Brunel’s navigator Will Oxley, was getting nervous as Brunel was out on a corner of the race track, anticipating a shift in the wind to the left. “I just wish it would hurry up,” says Oxley. “We have tried the other gybe a few times, but the breeze kept shifting back again and we are about two knots faster towards the Lizard on this gybe. We are looking forward to the gybe as the models predict more than 1000 miles will be covered in the next 48 hours. Bring it on!” he says.

Brunel (Matt Humphries) gybed onto starboard first at 1655 GMT and then quickly gybed back, followed by another try at 1955 GMT. They are now established on the starboard gybe they were looking for, but have lost 14 miles to the leaders.

While second-placed Ericsson (Neal McDonald), is now the most southerly boat in the fleet, 77 nautical miles south of ABN AMRO ONE, movistar (Bouwe Bekking) is sailing quickly up towards the pack, averaging over 20 knots in the last six hours and gaining 21 miles.

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