Yachting great Ellen MacArthur has met many challenges in her 29 years, but sailing off the eastern coast of China is nothing short of Russian roulette, she said - 'like playing a video game in which you have only one life'.
She may have sailed more than 400,000km of the world's oceans, most of it on her own, but the British seafarer says this is one of the most harrowing voyages she has undertaken.
After breaking the solo round-the-world record last year, MacArthur and her team set their sights on setting 12 new records over 10 legs in Asia, sailing from Japan to Singapore, aiming to cover 7,200km in a two-month period.
She and her three-man crew are leaving Shanghai today and heading for Taipei in B&Q, their 75-foot trimaran, on the fifth leg of a 10-stage journey. And so far the Asian experience had been anything but plain sailing, she said.
'Fog, fog and more fog made this like a game of Russian roulette. Negotiating the busy waters off the Chinese coast is comparable to driving blind on the M25 during rush hour - dodging fishing boats, fishing lines and cargo ships all the time,' she said. 'The number of ships around us at times was unbelievable. I have never seen so many fishing boats as we did when the fog cleared a little; a sight that I fear disappeared in Europe probably 30 or so years ago. It felt like we were in the middle of a harbour.'
With the situation so perilous the crew had to spend sleepless nights on constant radar watch.
'The eerie silence haunted by the echoing fog signals sent a chill down your spine. There was boat after boat, strobe beacons on the ends of the fishing nets, everywhere you peered deep into the fog you were sure that you saw a boat, or something, but was it just your imagination.'
