SAILING News: Ellen MacArthur has leapt into a four-day, eight-hour lead in her attempt to break the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe despite spending most of the previous 24 hours below battened hatches as a storm raged in the Southern Ocean.

It was a desperately trying and stressful period in which MacArthur managed only 20 minutes of sleep in B&Q.

Her boat was at the mercy of the wind and waves but for her corrective movements - using the autopilots - as the seas crashed over the deck in a welter of white water. Not until the storm moderated early yesterday morning was she able to rest.

Throughout the worst of the storm, when the wind was around 50 knots from the north, MacArthur was sailing B&Q with three reefs in the mainsail and a tiny storm jib, but that was more than enough to power the multihull towards Cape Horn, some 2,000 miles away, at an average speed in excess of 20 knots.

The experience allowed a time of further bonding between MacArthur and her high-tech craft. During the wild ride MacArthur said of B&Q: "She is just blowing me away. This is her moment, she is dealing with what is going on around us with the biggest heart you can imagine.

"I am numb with tiredness," she reported to her base in Cowes, "as my veins are filled with adrenalin and fear; my brain, so active it cannot switch off at all. I lie in the bunk and try to sleep - all I can do is warm up a little and close my eyes waiting for the next thud as we are thumped by the oncoming waves. Never knowing how big they are is horrible. Things have, to be quite honest, been better."

Day 41 is one MacArthur will prefer to forget. After the pummelling of the storm she knows that the same tempest is gathering venom astern of her and will return refreshed in two or three days. That is not an inviting prospect for her or B&Q, which will by then be closing on Cape Horn, the turning mark at the southern tip of South America, where the seas are always bad because of the narrow constriction with the Antarctic landmass.

This temporary respite will allow MacArthur's burned arm to improve further, but it was not high on her list yesterday. Her cri de coeur was: "I've run out of Branston." It is simply a matter of personal priorities.