Plain sailing
By Ellen MacArthur

Ellen MacArthur updates her experiences in the Route du Rhum. On Thursday, the weather afforded time for a breather as Mike Golding chased hard in Ecover.

For the moment, everything is fine.

I am sailing under gennaker and full main sail and have got 18-20 knots of wind.

Kingfisher is not quite as fast as Mike Golding's Ecover at the moment, but it's okay.

Right now I'm pretty stressed trying to stay in front of Mike and I'm not thinking about an ETA for arrival in Guadeloupe.

What I am I thinking about is the state of the boat.

I've got a little problem onboard. One of my auto-pilots is not working anymore. I've got another one but it's not so good.

For me the main concern - besides eating and sleeping as well as possible - is to get to the finish as fast as I can.

Whether I cross the line ahead of Michel Desjoyeaux (who leads the multihull class in Geant) is not an issue for me.

We're in different classes and we started at different times.

There is still time for much to change. We have many miles to race, and I need to stay focused.