At 0951 UT, but 2151 local time, we crossed the international date line under gennaker and full mainsail. There are smooth seas and starry skies and we've just finished rounding the volcanic arc of Hawaii. On crossing this symbolic line where you switch over from west to east, we have to reset our watches. We're going straight from the evening of Friday 4th to the evening of Saturday 5th, so as to stay firmly in touch with the reality of our world. The difference with the Greenwich meridian, which was increasing all the time, is that it will now begin to decrease. ‘Losing' 24 hours has naturally given rise to the odd joke, of varying degrees of quality, such as "it was exactly at that point that we were going to beat the 24 hour distance record"...

With just 2,000 miles to go to reach Yokohama, yesterday and today have felt like half-time. Currently being blown by around fifteen knots of breeze, sailing conditions are perfect. There's not a drop of water on deck and the platform is not shuddering in the slightest. Instead the hull is hissing gently through the water like the safest of cradles, giving us around twenty knots of boat speed. This isn't set to last however. The wind will fill in to 35/40 knots, or more. The end of the course promises to be bracing and physical but quick. Solely the latter adjective will be of any importance of course. Thanks to this, we'll be able to fully reap the rewards of this truce in the weather conditions and then there's no doubt we'll take up our Pacific sprint again in around thirty hours time.

Until tomorrow

Nicolas Raynaud