BT Global Challenge - Leg 1 - 28th September

With a little over 24 hours to Boston, initially there seemed little point effecting a repair to the broken pole - wrong. There's every chance of a light downwind finish, and with two or three boats within ten miles of us, I knew the possibility of us needing the second pole for a gybing duel was high. Carefully we carried the two pieces of pole down below, and after some brief instructions I left project manager Bob Bell and solicitor Chris Morton in charge of fixing it. Eight hours of sawing, splitting, sanding and screwing saw 'Stumpy' proudly brought back on deck - now 1200 mm shorter than his predecessor. We were back in business - or so we thought.

That night, while Bob and Chris were hard at it, the on watch team were having a tricky time. We dropped the spinnaker a moment before a rain squall accelerated the wind from 22 kts to 35 kts. With the wind now gusting to 40 knots and visibility down to 50 metres, LG FLATRON was running downwind, surfing at speeds up to 15 kts with a full main and a poled out headsail.

As we lurched to windward, an over-anxious helm bore away to correct the course. Too far! We rolled into a crash gybe. The boom preventer snapped and the mainsail swung across the yacht. Moments later the foreguy holding the poled out headsail broke free. It appeared that the webbing strop on the pole end had parted. We now had no way of safely retrieving the spinnaker pole to gybe back.

This was a major problem and with one spinnaker pole already broken and another awaiting the same fate, a quick decision was needed as to how we could retrieve the second pole. Archie Carr - or 'Marine boy' as he's known thanks to a spell with the Royal Marines - is now a bank analyst. Luckily, he is also one of the fittest guys on board and loves the rough stuff at the sharp end of the yacht. His ability to think laterally is second to none and within minutes he was explaining a solution to me.

After he finished, I told him we had only two options. The first was his plan. The second involved him taking a trip to the end of the pole to attach a new foreguy. Archie frowned, it was pitch black and blowing a gale, 'Was I joking?' he asked.

'No.'

We tried his plan, and after having no success, Archie pulled on his climbing harness and was hauled up the headsail sheet 40 feet to the end of the spinnaker pole. Within seconds he had secured a new downhaul and was back on deck - maybe a little pumped up. But Marines, they love that stuff.

With the pole now secured we gybed back in towards Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, during the few hours of mishap our course had taken us too far south and so thrown away the advantage we had secured of being the most northerly yacht. This will cost us later as the wind is due to go round to the north. With Quadstone now 60 miles in front, we needed to be further north to give us a good angle to attack their lead. With that gone, we will have to sail faster to get through them and with BP and Compaq a few miles ahead, our focus is to hunt them down first.

Watch this space."

Since Conrad's report, LG FLATRON have gone back in front of Compaq - just. On Thursday, at 0749 GMT, the BT Global Challenge website reported the positions and distances to the finish of the top six as:

1 Quadstone 35 nm
2 BP 77 nm
3 LG FLATRON 93 nm
4 Compaq 94 nm
5 VERITAS 122 nm
5 Isle of Man 123 nm