No letting up in leg 4

My alarm was set for 1 am, the time for my watch duty. Dad had covered
this watch (1-5am) for the last few nights so it was long overdue to
be my turn. I had prepared my self already, Fastrack were still in
sight but proving hard to catch. My plan was to catch them during this
watch when they probably had the autohelm in and a slower boat speed
than if they were hand steering.
To catch them I would simply drink a large can of relentless (like Red
Bull but far more potent (gets me wired for about 18 hours normaly!)
put all of the clothes I had on, have a pocketful of food and sit
driving the boat in the drizzle without rest for 5 hours.
As if synchronized with my watch as it beeped the boat tacked. I
called ip to Dad on deck to ask why? Did he need a hand?? There were
lots and lots of oil/gas rigs and large boats around as this was the
business end of the North sea. The answer came back that it was not
because of a boat that we tacked but to cover Chris Tibbs in Taika who
was 4 miles behind! Behind? But he started over 2 hours in front!
Fantastic! Even more to play for!

Havind dressed I took station at the helm, taking over from Dad who
was by this stage looking tired- he should be after the last few days.
It's been a hard leg.

I caught up a bit on Fastrack and managed to keep Chris a safe
distance behind. At one point I had to tack to miss an Oil platform
and noticed that Chris too followed. He was obviously covering me as
closely as I was Fastrack! I could picture the scene in the boat, both
He and Kim his co-skipper are very driven men. This time however it
was our turn to be infront, something I wasn't going to give up easily.

As the wind dropped to a light breath the clock turned and Dad was up
from his short but deserved rest. We did a sail change, then as it
continued to drop we rowed, then did a sail change, etc etc. We were
rewarded for our efforts by the wind gods who kindly gave us at least
some wind to work with, at this point direction is not important so
London as it keeps going.
Fastrack ended up on a heading towards an oil rig, I think chasing
what little breeze there was.
In our favour our new Code Zero sail again proved it's worth and gave
us enough speed to carrythroughthe lul and end up with a healthy lead
on them.

With 14 miles till the finish Chris in Taika is about 4 miles behind,
Fastrack has disapeared (hopefully begins us!) and we havnt seen or
heard from anyone else for a time. Not sure how that all fits in the
larger picture of the race but from here it looks good.

The wind is droppiing again so the in the last 14 miles nothing is
certain. Well just keep on plugging along untill the line......