Dragon is struggling in these conditions

VOLVO OCEAN RACE - RACE DIARY WEEK 10:IT'S HOT and humid, so life's pretty uncomfortable on board the Dragon right now as we head from India, around Sri Lanka, on our way to Singapore, writes Justin Slattery

It's not helped by our frustration at going from first to fifth place over the last 24 hours.

We played a good strategic game at the start. We chose the most easterly route out of Cochin, hugging the coastline. Initially, it looked like we had got it wrong as we took big losses on the rest of the fleet when we were stranded with no wind for some time after midnight.

However, once the sea breeze died and the gradient wind came in, accompanied by a land breeze, we were perfectly positioned and we were off! It wasn't long before we took the lead in the early hours of Sunday morning.

It was quite a brave call by our new navigator, Steve Hayles, and fortunately it paid off. Steve is very experienced and it can be a good thing to bring in someone fresh.

I think we'll all benefit from having him on the team while Ian Moore takes a well-earned break with his family. We have one other crew change - our boat captain James Carroll (Jimbo) has stepped in to replace Tom Braidwood on this leg.

It's great to have another Irishman on board and the mood on the Dragon is upbeat.

We all predicted this leg would be full of stops and starts as the wind shifts and it wasn't long before we sailed into our second parking lot with no breeze.

It was painful to watch our opposition sail right up to us and park alongside. But this time, it was a case of first in, first out as we picked up a new easterly breeze first, which sent us blasting off down the coast towards Sri Lanka at 20 knots.

Since then it's been frustrating as four of our rivals - Ericsson4, Puma, Telefonica Blue and Telefonica Black - have been able to pick us off, one by one, blast reaching between the tips of India and Sri Lanka. Our boat is simply not as fast as them in these conditions.

It's so hot and sticky on the Dragon that it's hard to sleep during our four hours off watch. It was made worse by the fact we had a very noisy stowaway cricket on board. I felt like I was camping! We were given a terrific send-off in Cochin.

Thousands of people turned out to see the boats leave the dock and wish us well. One of the highlights of my job is that you get to travel the world and this race is taking us to places I've never visited before, like India. I have to say the locals in Cochin were among the friendliest people I've ever met. They couldn't do enough for us.

We were only there for just under two weeks, so it was a relatively short and busy stopover for our shore crew, getting the boat serviced and ready for this leg. The main task was to replace our broken boom.

A spare had been flown in from The Netherlands and was waiting for us when we arrived. The damaged one has now been sent back to the manufacturers to be repaired.

Our broken boom saga in the last leg did earn us an accolade though, as we were presented with a Seamanship Award in India by the race organisers. It's always good to get an award, but I have to say I'd have rather been on the podium than winning this one.

The shore crew managed to get the boat back into the water in good time which gave us three days sailing to test new sails and check that everything is as it should be.

It was quite difficult to get a stretch of water to sail in among all the fishing vessels, something which will be a major obstacle in this leg.

Pirates are also still a real threat. The race organisers have placed a waypoint off Sri Lanka which means we have to stay much further south in a bid to keep us out of harm's way.

We'll also have to negotiate the Malacca Straits, one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. It'll be a challenging time for our new navigator.

As we turn east into the headwinds we fear it'll be a slow march to the scoring gate and Singapore with much upwind (into the wind) sailing.

Although this leg is just 1,950 miles in distance, it looks like there will be light wind conditions for much of it so it could take a long time to get there.

We're hopeful that we should reach Singapore in around a week, but there's a very real possibility we could still be on the Dragon on Christmas Day. I hope someone has remembered to pack the freeze-dried turkey.