Cowes Week video report

Aviva's Dee Caffari and Nigel King are running high on adrenaline and sacrificing sleep in their bid for boat speed Light airs in the slow haul south to Finisterre have forced Dee and Nigel to stay mainly on deck, hand steering and trying to second guess what the fickle wind will do next as it shifts from north east to east.

"We have not had a great deal of sleep because it has been quite full on," said Dee.

"We have been doing an hour each on deck but by the time you have eaten or done a sail change, there's not much time to sleep. You lie down and listen to everything going on around you and know that a sail change is needed so it is difficult to sleep. We are both feeling quite tired but there is no shortage of adrenalin."

"Once the breeze has filled in a bit more and things get more consistent, we will probably extend our watches to two hours each so we get time for a decent sleep."

"We have been pretty much hand steering all the time because we are able to react faster than the autopilot. On the first day, we were changing sails constantly, from a gennaker to a Code O when the wind went light and then when it shifted, would change to a spinnaker then change back.

"We ended up with a lot of sails on deck that all went up and down a few times so it kept us entertained if nothing else," said Dee, who admitted she has been dressed like a teletubby' to ward off the chill.

"The wind has been a lot lighter than forecast. We had two knots of breeze for long periods and you have to work really hard to keep the boat moving. We all thought we would be reaching with an easterly breeze but that hasn't been the case."

Two days into the 4,350 nautical mile Transat Jacques Vabre, Dee is finding out what it takes to be an elite Open 60 skipper in only her third competitive event, she is delighted at Aviva's position which at the last poll placed her in tenth place, less than 50 nautical miles behind leader Marc Guillemot in Safran and just 17 miles behind Mike Golding in his brand new Ecover 3.

"We are really pleased with our position," she said.

"The first night we felt we had lost out. We lost the navigation lights of Akena and Roxy really quickly and we thought we had lost loads of miles. When you park up in a no wind zone, you assume that everyone else is still moving while you have stopped but when we got the position in the morning, we were really chuffed to see we were still in the running and yesterday was really good as well. It gives us more incentive.

"I am really enjoying it. I imagine it will be really high pressure for the whole race - it is something I have to get used to but it will be good for me. The boat is doing well. She has been wonderful actually.

"As we speak, the sea is a flat calm. There is a gentle swell coming up from the Bay of Biscay and the winds are changing from north-east to east as we try and head south.

"We are getting sucked into Bay of Biscay rather than aiming straight for Finisterre but the wind is forecast to fill in and go more easterly and possibly southerly later so we just have to get through this light patch at the top of the Bay. It has finally warmed up because it has been freezing. I have been a right wuss, with every single layer on. I've been like a teletubby," she said.

2:32pm Monday 5th November 2007

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