Walker’s World Race Diary - 22 January - Sailing - More Sports

Leg three seems a long time ago after the long Christmas break in Singapore. It gave the shore crew time to make some serious improvements to the boat including new daggerboard bearings which we hope will improve the underwater hydrodynamics. We also had to reweigh the boat for the measurers but the sailing crew found time to take a week off and some even returned home for Christmas.

Now it is back to the 'office' and we again find ourselves ploughing upwind as these boats hate to do. This is particularly tough for us as our lighter keel bulb disadvantages us against the rest of the fleet. Still we have fought back hard in the shifty winds of the last 24 hours and we are currently lying in 4th place - a good achievement for us at this stage. There always seems to be some risk out there for the fleet whether it be pirates, storms or icebergs and today that risk is the sunken atolls of the Spratly Islands.

Click below to listen to Stuart Alexander talk to Ian Walker by satellite phone

This is described as 'dangerous ground' on the charts which we are also advised cannot be relied upon. Our aim was to avoid this area but, as you can imagine, the windshifts have sent us in this direction for optimal performance and in the Volvo this often forces us to push the barriers on safety.

As I type this we are bearing off round an atoll that comes up from the sea bed 2000 metres below and breaches the surface with a reef. I just hope it is where it says it is on the chart as it is a very dark night! Another obstacle has been all the debris in the water.

Today we sailed through a load of chopped tree trunks any one of which could have holed us. Fortunately it was daylight and we managed to weave our way through them. We have hit many other things at night but survived without damage. We now have 316 miles to the waypoint off Luzon which marks about halfway to Qingdao. From here conditions are forecast to worsen seriously with up to 40 knots of wind and steep seas for two or three days as we sail north past Taiwan. All of our seamanship skills will be called for during this period and it remains to be seen if every boat will make it to China in one piece.

This may turn out to be the deciding factor of this leg but for now we will continue to fight for every inch. After a few days of survival conditions we can expect the temperatures to drop below freezing as we approach Qingdao where we are scheduled to arrive in approximately a week. I have all my thermals, hats and gloves at the ready.

Click here for the latest developments as Green Dragon suffer a major blow to their chances.

Ian Walker has won two silver medals at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympic Games and was skipper of the Team GBR challenge for the America’s Cup in Auckland in 2003. Now he is skipper of the Galway-based, Chinese-partnered Green Dragon team in the Volvo Ocean Race and is writing an exclusive commentary for The Independent plus talking to Stuart Alexander by satellite link from the boat during the 10 legs and 37,000 miles that take the fleet from Spain around the world to St. Petersburg.