Having crawled into the Caroline Islands on one engine, after the diesel injector damaged a cylinder on the other, Earthrace‘s attempt to break the powerboat circumnavigation record is in jeopardy.

The crew of the 24m New Zealand trimaran has been dogged by problems since they left Barbados on 10 March, including a 10-day incarceration in Guatemala after running down a fishing boat and killing a man off the coast.

Now awaiting engineers and supplies from Hawaii, the team are contemplating a goal-post moving exercise: by starting and finishing the voyage at San Diego instead of Barbados, they can eliminate the huge delays of the first month and have a reasonable chance of completing the journey in less than 60 days. This would be an improvement of 15 days on British boat Cable & Wireless‘s record set in 1998.