Delay

Cheyenne expected to finish this afternoon. Brian Thompson reports from on board

Day 58:
Position at 0510GMT 46deg 11.440N 08deg 47.750W
Course/speed: 038deg/21.1
TWS/TWD: 15.0 knots/293deg

After an unexpectedly slow evening and night when the wind dropped to 7 knots and their boat speed to around the same, Steve Fossett and the crew of Cheyenne were fully back up to speed and flying at 0510GMT this morning. They still have just less than 200 miles to go before they reach the finish line off Ushant. The westerly breeze looks set to build over the course of today and by the time they reach the line it should be blowing 20-25 knots.

If they average 20 knots (as they should) then they will cross the line at roughly 1500BST this afternoon. At 25 knots (also possible) then it will be 1300BST. They will then head for Plymouth where the team's PR guru Stuart Radnovsky tells thedailysail he has the Michelob Ultra on ice.

We will be following how this record in real time for the rest of the day...


Brian Thompson reports from on board...

Not 18,000 miles, not 1800 miles, just 180 miles to go...The coast of France is coming up fast on the charts. We keep having to change scale as we approach, exposing more and more detail of the coastline. It’s a perfect morning, the sun has just come up and we are making 20 knots towards the finish line at Ushant. We expect to finish this afternoon.

Yesterday was one of our slower days, just under 300 miles sailed, as we had to pass through a high pressure ridge that was blocking our way. This caused us 15 hours of sailing under 10 knots of speed. It was always going to be slow, and at least we kept moving all the time, and on course. We spent a lot of time with our Code 0 sail on the bowsprit, our lightest sail.

Now the wind is about 15 knots and forecast to increase to 20-25 by this evening. If all goes well we should reach Plymouth between sunset and midnight. The moon will be bright so I am looking forward to seeing the rolling hills of Devon and Cornwall painted in silver, as we enter Plymouth Sound tonight.

It is a little hard to believe that the trip is almost over and that this routine of life on board, is about to end. If we do finish today then we will have set a fantastic time, one that we could not have expected at the beginning of the voyage. We have had our slow days, and our equipment problems, some of them very serious, but then we have had huge doses of good luck to counterbalance that. Most of the sailing has been great, and the experience of sailing in the Southern Ocean was priceless. I have learnt an incredible amount on the trip, about sailing and life in general. I have also made a lot of good friends on board, and heard from many old friends, who have written to me through my website. Thank you so much for all the messages.

Our last watch of the record is coming up, the last one for Steve, Damian, Nick and myself to spend standing in the cockpit, working, talking and looking out over the ocean at the waves, the clouds and the stars. Tomorrow morning at dawn there will be no more trimming, helming, changing sails, getting cold, hot, wet or sun baked. I will be waking up in a warm bed and looking out over Sutton Harbour, the seagulls calling and the sound of traffic humming by on the tarmac.

It will be interesting to see how it feels to be back on dry land after 58 days at sea. Normally the only really strange experience is being a passenger in a car; the speed, the silence and the smoothness is very bizarre. When the car goes over 30 miles an hour you can find yourself reaching out for the mainsheet traveller, ready to ease, but you can't find it..

There will be lots of great things to look forward to. Family, friends, the smell of land, fresh food. On the other hand after so long in such a clean, quiet environment (outside the boat, anyway), there are some things I do not look forward to; pollution, crowds, traffic, the news..

Either way it’s all rushing up fast, soon it will be 18 miles to go, then 1.8 miles, and then we will be done...