Anthony Nossiter of djuice had to face the strongest charges, firstly he crossed Cape Horn bare of any cloth, and secondly he tried to escape facing the king by telling lies. The crew revealed the fraud and wrote from on board : "In Rio, he asked his friend Nico [Celon] on Amer Sports One, how he could get out of trouble with King Neptune. His good friend Nico advised him to tell a lie that he had done the Melbourne to Osaka race earlier, and therefore already had crossed the equator. In the meantime Nocka thought it was a bit too easy to find out that he hadn’t done the race, so he chose to tell the skipper and others on djuice that he had done a delivery from Melbourne to Osaka. Very early we on had suspicions that this was a complete fake story as 99.9% of the deliveries are done the opposite way, from Osaka to Melbourne, after the race to Osaka. This was clearly confirmed yesterday by Nocka’s nice friend Nico on Amer Sports One who sent us a mail telling us that we shouldn’t believe a word of what Nocka said about earlier equator crossings !! What a set-up ! What a friend, and how angry did King Neptune get ????. Well done Nock !" Neptune’s helpers tied the poor fellow to the jockey pole and, with a speech justifying our punishment, the pot of ’crud’ was poured all over his naked body and left to dry. It took him hour to clean up properly.

Freddy Loof on Amer Sports One was not much better off. Neptune doesn’t usually show any mercy. It doesn’t matter whether someone is a novice sailor or a multiple Olympic class world champion as in Freddy’s case. Anthony Merrington of SEB was made sure to remember this day in his life for the years to come.

Meanwhile, the fleet is still racing hard and has entered the northern hemisphere trade wind belt and accelerated to exhilarating speeds of up to 20 knots. The close racing between illbruck, ASSA ABLOY and Tyco we saw over the last days in the 10-knot boat speed range has been carried forward to the 20-knot range. The yachts are in full planing conditions on a northwesterly course with the spinnaker up and 20 to 25 knots of wind over the starboard quarter.. The boats are searching for the perfect path in the ever-changing landscape of the four-meter high waves. The bows dig up the 28 degree C warm water and rush it back, giving the crews a welcome soaking in the tropical heat. Mark Rudiger expects that not a lot will change until the boats reach Barbuda as it is straight line reaching. The speed of the top three yachts is very evenly matched and unless a boat breaks gear, there will not be many passing lanes open.

SEB, Amer Sports Too, Amer Sports One and News Corp are spread over a line perpendicular to their course and it is a very open race for all of them to go for the places four to seven. Djuice has finally sped up as well, but is trailing the leading yacht illbruck by almost 150 miles.

Gurra Krantz said in an interview that he is relieved that things are going better for them again. Their speed has improved and they are closing in on the leading yachts. The reason for this is that they spent some time tuning the new mast they stepped in Rio and in better positioning. "We position ourselves better, sometimes it depends just on a few hundred metres whether you gain or lose", Gunnar Krantz explained during a satellite interview. However he doesn‚t expect to catch up with the leading pack on the reaching stretch to Barbuda. He added : "I am not surprised that it is Amer Sports Too that is putting the pressure on. They know the boat better every leg and it is time to realise that they can sail the boat very fast. We are going to do everything we can to beat them, and I think all of us think the same."

Knut Frostad sent in an account of frustration after being badly left behind under a cloud that was sweeping on from behind, hitting them first and burying them in torrential rain with no wind at all for several hours : "I hate it ! I hate this more than anything in the world ! The only thing I know then, is, that for sure, someone else is moving. For some reason the wind doesn’t come back at all for two very long hours, and when it did came back it was with only four to five knots as far as we could see and drizzling rain.

No, no, no. Can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t sleep !!! It’s just too frustrating ! Why us ? Why now ? We should have seen this ? With Jean Yves I run through the last satellite pictures again. The newest one shows a huge cloud all over the whole fleet. You wouldn’t be able to say that we where the only one parked in there."

By now, the trade wind is well established all the way to the West Indies and with the current speed, the leaders should cover the 1300 miles to Barbuda in less than four days.