Emma Richards, the Hamble yachtswoman competing in the gruelling Around Alone race, faced her toughest ordeal so far when the gooseneck of the mast on her Open 60 Pindar broke requiring an urgent five-hour repair operation.

Despite the setback, Richards has held onto second position - where she has been placed since the start of the second leg from Torbay to Cape Town - as she bids to become the first British woman to complete the solo round-the-world race.

Emma had to go into action when she heard the sound of metal disintegrating and found the goosneck, which attaches the boom to the deck at the bottom of the mast, had broken clean away. She dropped the mainsail to take the pressure off the boom, disconnected the mainsail from the boom and re-hoisted it with a block lashed onto the clew for a mainsheet.

She created a cats cradle of lines from various parts of the gooseneck jaws back to her powerful Harken winches, then trimmed and tweaked the 10mm aluminium plate back into shape and was able to get the central vertical pin re-located.

The repair is temporary until she reaches Cape Town but the remaining 2,000 miles will be particularly stressful as she contends not just with the proximity of third-placed Thierry Dubois in Solidaires, lying some 40 miles behind but with the possibility that the repair may not survive the stormy seas that lie between her and the finish.

"I thought that my dream of a podium finish in this leg was over," she commented.

"It was so frustrating. After weeks of some of the hardest sailing of my life, I thought I had put the toughest part of this leg behind me and could just concentrate on my closest competition and maintaining my position.

"But that's not the way it works in ocean racing! However, it's funny what a little adrenaline and a whole lot of will can do."