"It's all good onboard on Day 7 - we've got some good wind at last and are now caning it downwind towards Madeira at 11kts. This feels like 90 kts relative to the average speeds over the last couple of days. We'll hopefully round Maderia at about 1000 tomorrow.  We had Sopra Groupe in visual today who then gybed off south an hour before we did. We´re pushing hard and it's gonna be a long night but we're keen to get past them quickly and move onwards."

"Also our cabin has just been attacked by a canary. I had to to flush it out by crawling into the front of the boat and shouting at it loads to scare it out. It was lucky to escape with its life as we are hungry guys and relish a bit of protein!"

Phil 

As Jersey-based Phil Sharp settles into the 3,700 mile double-handed ransatlantic race the AG2R, signs of tiredness have started to show as the eams continue to fight for position.  Phil knew before leaving that it ould be a tough race, competing against some of the most experienced French ailors in the industry, and as his report below shows, there is no let up ith their punishing routine onboard Atlantik. Phil reported in last night, whilst enjoying 13th place, a solid half-way up the fleet, showing that heir westerly route could have helped them. Overnight their position has lipped a little, but after 6 days of very close racing, there is still only 44 miles between them and the leader.  The trailing boat at the back of the leet is 109 miles behind. Still 3,056 miles to go….