Colin, who's part of the crew of the Glasgow: Scotland With Style entry for two of the race's eight legs, from Qingdao to Santa Cruz and then from Santa Cruz to Jamaica, is enjoying an unscheduled ten-day stopover in Honolulu thanks to some particularly fierce Pacific weather, which requires some specialist spare parts to be flown out to the boats from Germany.

On the way from Qingdao, though, Colin wrote the following blog entry for the event's website (www.clipperroundtheworld.com) after a particularly trying day ploughing the ocean wave...

"Oh my aching arms! What with grinding winches to tighten ropes, heaving sails on deck for hoisting, pulling ropes to hoist them and grabbing flapping sails to pull them down. Even on dry land each sail needs three or four people just to lift it.

"As one of six new crew members to join Glasgow in Qingdao I knew it would be physically tough, particularly as the remaining crew had been at sea for six months already. Despite all our winches the power in the end comes from human muscle.

"The watch started well at 5.00am with early dawn beyond the bow on the eastern horizon and a strong west wind pushing us on at ten knots, with one reef in the main, Yankee 2 (Y2) poled out and the staysail all pulling well.

"Increasing daylight showed a hole in the Y2 - it would have to come down for repair, so heave, heave and heave to get Y3 as the replacement up on deck and ready to hoist. Grab, grab and grab, to get Y2 down, tied and below for repair and then pull, pull and pull, to hoist Y3.

"A flash of lightning from behind from a very black cloud and in minutes the wind increased to 40 knots and the boat slewed across the wind. Shout, shout, and shout from the skipper and rapid grind, grind and grind to put in a second reef and to get Y3 off the pole.

"Glasgow resumed her course at speed. The squall passed but we had damage to the hanks at the front of Y3, so grab, grab and grab, to get it down, then grind, grind and grind to get reef out of mainsail to keep up our speed.

"By then Y2 had been patched but was not needed so heave, heave and heave to get it back on deck and folded and put away. Y3 quickly fixed and ready to rehoist so pull, pull and pull, to get it raised.

"Down below for breakfast; hot porridge, hot tea and bread and jam and then to a dry bunk at 9.30am for three hours' sleep. Someone please pass the Deep Heat!"

After reading that, we think we'll happily leave our navigating to Caledonian MacBrayne's ferry crews...