With the ultimate irony, Volvo Ocean Race participant, Turn the Tide on Plastic, has been slowed as a length of blue plastic has wrapped itself around part of the hull. Local yachtsman, Henry Bombay, is crewing on the racing yacht.

Henry first came to the attention of the racing world when the restaurant chain Rockfish, which has a history of supporting young successful sailors, supported him in 2009 on his solo sail round Britain and in his Solitaire de Figaro offshore challenges. Henry is a former pupil of Churston Ferrers Grammar School and now competes at the top of world offshore racing.

Veteran female round the world sailor, Britain’s Dee Caffari skippers the boat after launching her campaign to Turn the Tide on Plastic and clean up the oceans. The race is for 65 metre yachts and each carries a crew of between 7 and 11.

The boats are currently racing leg six which is a long one at 6,100 miles. It started on Wednesday, February 7, and takes the fleet across the South China Sea to the northern tip of the Philippines and then out into the Pacific and a long drag race to the south-east, dodging the many island chains of Polynesia until they reach Auckland.

Turn the Tide on Plastic was in sixth place at the time of this report.