SAILING: Damian Foxallis co-skipper with Jean-Pierre Dick on Paprec-Virbac in the two-handed, non-stop Barcelona World Race. As they start thinking of home they find their lead cut to 850 miles.

So here we are, sitting off the coast of Argentina, heading north and getting warmer by the day. We have less than 6,000 miles to sail, a quarter of this race remaining, out of the icy Southern Ocean, we're in the lead - still and have a fairly comfortable 850-mile advantage over Hugo Boss who remain our sole rivals.

And yet the stress levels are at their maximum, the worst yet with the outcome of this race hanging in the balance, at the mercy of the wind gods as I feel the pit of my stomach tightening by the day.

Since rounding Cape Horn last Thursday morning, there has been no let up.

Getting past it and then negotiating the Strait Le Maire between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island took an immense amount of energy as we kept the pace on.

It has eaten into our energy levels and sapped us as we constantly trim and re-trim the boat, changing sails, re-setting sheets, taking in and then letting out the reef slabs in the mainsail as each wind-shift blows in.

We cannot allow our game to slip, not now, not after we have achieved so much between holding the lead and avoiding damage to our boat and gear.

I managed to climb the rig again and just a fractional halyard was showing signs of chafe so that's been changed now and hopefully we'll avoided a problem at a more crucial time later on.

Yet the exhaustion of the past week has failed to diminish our spirits and within a few days we should be enjoying more tropical sailing as we head for the second-last scoring-gate at Fernando de Noronha off Brazil where we will complete our circumnavigation.

And yet we watch and wait to see what way the weather breaks for Alex and Capey as they clear the Horn and start northwards in the South Atlantic.

Here's how the next week or 10 days will play out.

Dominating the tactical game is how to tackle the St Helena high-pressure system that usually persists between South America and Africa. This can mostly deliver steady if light conditions northwards to the equator and is generally tackled by sailing west of the Falklands.

On the other hand, in previous races such as the Volvo Ocean Race or before that, the Whitbread, a stop-over port in Uruguay or Brazil would normally see us duck west of the Falklands for the most direct route up the coast.

However, we were obliged to take this course last Friday as a massive depression west of South Georgia would have delivered 50-plus knots that would surely have tested our gear to its limits, possibly beyond.

Instead, we began tacking into the wind off the coast and while not our fastest point of sail, made reasonable progress as Hugo Boss surged into the Cape and reduced our lead from a thousand miles to 800 before they too slowed and we opened ground again.

At least my previous hopes of a one thousand-mile lead at the Cape proved not to be a pipe dream afterall!

The problem now is that while we have opted for a more coastal route and should have breeze for a few days yet, there is more of a chance that it could crap out on us altogether as we close on Brazil and the warmer latitudes. If Alex and Capey take a flyer and head offshore, they may well have us.

We can certainly expect to see our lead cut back to a few hundred miles by the time we reach Fernando and even then, I won't start to be truly happy until we have got through the Doldrums on the other side of the equator.

There's only a couple of weeks of racing left in this contest.

We may even reach Barcelona by the end of the month.

But if you were to offer to shorten the course to just 20 miles ahead of us right now I think I'd probably take you up on the offer. Until then, I'll have the wooden batten firmly clenched between my teeth as this final stage is played out.