OCEAN RACE DIARY: Week 19, Leg 5: Qingdao to RioWE'VE HARDLY slept since we left China as it's been a wet and wild few days on the Green Dragon. We're going so fast, punching through the waves, and there is so much water coming over the deck you wouldn't believe it.

This is the stuff adrenaline junkies dream of. We’ve been sailing at over 30 knots at times, covering more than 500 miles a day so it’s all been very exciting. Most of the time the bow of the boat is buried under the water, which means we’re getting a soaking on deck. We’re having to wear our full survival suits as our wet weather gear just cannot keep us dry and we’re all harnessed onto the yacht for safety.

It’s been a bumpy ride as we navigate the notorious Black Tide – an extremely strong current which runs up the East China Sea. Right now, we’ve cleared South Korea, rounded the bottom of Japan and are now heading out into the Pacific Ocean.

The winds have remained consistent at around 22-26 knots. We have about 2,000 miles to go to the equator and we’re trying to get as far east as possible so we can benefit from the strong south-east trade winds, which will give us a push as we dive down south on our way to Rio.

We’re totally exhausted as we’ve had to make lots of sail changes over the first few days which has meant getting little sleep. We’re currently running a standby watch system where we’re on-watch for four hours and off-watch for four – but we’re on standby for two hours of every second off-watch. So far, we’ve been pretty much needed for all our standby watches.

We’re currently in fourth place and we can see Ericsson 3 about five miles ahead. They’ve had a lucky run – by starting this leg 18 hours late, they were able to get into a better weather system and enjoy a glamour trip. We feel a bit cheated by the whole situation with this and the last leg and I think the race organisers need to look again at the rules.

Ericsson 3 had to pull out of the last leg as they were so badly damaged, but they were allowed to fly a new bow in from Italy, send the boat by a barge to a different harbour for repair – fly the crew off to China for a rest and then all fly back to the fully repaired boat and finish the leg, picking up four points. Surely there should be some limit to what outside assistance you can have? Ericsson 3 have done nothing wrong and we just have to accept the situation, but I think the rules should be tightened.

We had a great send-off from China as literally thousands of people turned out for a huge leaving ceremony. Our media man Guo Chaun is from Qingdao so he’s been treated as a bit of a rock star over the last couple of weeks. The enthusiasm and support for the race has been overwhelming and Discover Ireland have done a great job promoting tourism in Ireland during the stopover.

The fog lifted as we set off and we could see the Chinese coastline clearly for the first time and it’s really very pretty.

As we clock up the miles, we’re still hardly putting a dent into the overall distance to Rio. This 12,300 mile leg is the longest in the history of the race and will probably take us around 40 days. It’s quite daunting to think we’ll be at sea for so long.

We’ve had to bring so much more food – around 44 days worth in 25 crew bags – which is a long time to be eating freeze-dried meals! We’re also carrying more spare parts in case the boat gets damaged over such a long journey. It has meant the boat is much heavier – about 200-300kg heavier in fact. There’s so much more stuff on board that it’s hard to walk around with all the bags. It creates a lot more work as we have to move all this gear from one side of the yacht to the other when we tack (manoeuvre) and instead of taking us 10-15 minutes, it now takes us 20.

The next challenge for us will be navigating the Doldrums as we cross the equator for the third time in this race. There are a lot of points to be won on this leg with two scoring gates. It’s been an exhilarating first few days on the Dragon and we’re all in good form. The two Ericsson boats and Puma are faster than us in these stability reaching conditions, but they’re still within striking distance and I’m sure there’s still plenty of excitement to come.