Skipper Ian Walker and media crew member keep us up to date with the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team's progress on board Azzam in Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race. <b> IAN WALKER, SKIPPER</b> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Today is a big day today for two reasons. Firstly it is my 42</span><span style="font: 7.3px Arial; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><sup>nd</sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"> birthday. Not much to celebrate out here today after losing a few miles crossing the front at first light this morning - still it was better than Christmas Day morning when we got smacked by 35 knots and torrential rain on leg 2. It was nice to receive a few bags of sweets from my wife and kids plus a couple of lovely cards. These moments make you miss home more than ever. </span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The second reason today is a big day is that it is the christening of my beautiful goddaughter Sophie Fox. Not a great start to as a godfather being 5500 miles away on her christening but I guess I have her whole life to make it up to her. </span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Talking of home the kiwis onboard are beginning to wonder if we will ever turn right towards New Zealand - Jules insists we are still a few days away from that eventuality but at least it will save us from any more upwind sailing for a while. It is making for a very interesting tactical race. </span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I suspect anybody watching at home will wonder what on earth we are all up to. It is probably quite misleading as to who is actually winning. I am not really sure how things are going to pan out but we have committed to the new wind that will fill in from the north in a day's time.</span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I suspect there is a lot of time for the race order to be shaken up yet and now that Kenny has re-read the sailing instructions and realised we are not in fact going to Qingdao I wouldn't bet against Puma getting back into the fray as the Northerly winds come in.</span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">We have had two other incidents to speak of today. Firstly last night we were confronted by a line of flashing lights several miles long. Assuming this to be a long line of drift nets we took evasive action costing us several miles - we kept reminding ourselves that anything was better than getting stuck in a drift net at night. When we got near, a fishing boat started to drive quite aggressively which suggests we were doing the right thing. Secondly today we had our second hard collision with a large plank of wood. It hit the rudder pretty hard but fortunately we were doing only 11 knots and not 20. We seem to be unscathed. </span> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Other than that all is well onboard as we run gently in easy conditions across the bottom of Japan. It is starting to look like our route will be remarkably similar to that of the last race through this part of the world.</span> <b>NICK DANA, MEDIA CREW MEMBER</b> East boun<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, hirakakupro-w3, osaka, 'ms pgothic', sans-serif; font-size: 13px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; ">zam, we have just linked into what we hope is the start of the Northerly trades. Around 12.5 knots from 345 deg. (TWD) has us comfortable reaching above 15 knots boat speed due east. Though it still looks as if we will continue east for another thousand miles or so, at least we are moving at pace now. The next schedule should give us an indication of what's to come, as both Groupama and Camper are just a bit further east and could be in similar conditions. If so, we will follow-suit and continue our trek on port tack. If not, we are likely to keep hedging northeast towards to the trade lines that are indicated in the weather models. </span></span> With light air and VMG downwind sailing earlier on in the day, Azzam was transformed into what looked like an episode of Monster Garage. All of the tool bags were sprawled out in various corners of the interior. Justin Ferris was on deck doing sail bag repairs in the sun, while Justin Slattery and Craig Satterthewaite sweated it out below using a kettle burner to reshape a bent fitting on a titanium furler. Wade Morgan had his ever so accurate glue gun out and was mending a broken stacking fence. "It's all goin on now..." as Slattery put it: "once you start with the tools, you notice everything that's broken. And if it's not broken - we'll probably end up breaking it trying to fix it!" Last but not least, it is our skipper's birthday today. So everyone who has access to a computer please write in to one of Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing's several social media sources and wish Ian a happy 42<sup>nd</sup> birthday!