SunGard Front Arena first at Dover - Fujifilm closing the gap

At 12 o'clock we were right by Dover harbour wall, according to the position report we're still holding first but Fujifilm has closed the gap from 15.8 miles last night to 10.4 making for a very stressful and tense sail, the pressure is really on.
We seem to struggle to point high in anything less than 10 knots of wind and end up with very wide tacking angles, which means we make very little progress forward and towards Plymouth, things are made worse by the strong tide we have had against for the last 4 hours... hopefully things will get better as the tide turns.
We were hoping for sea breezes to form by mid morning on such a sunny day but until now no sign, so we're stuck with 7-8 knots of wind at the moment, constantly trimming trying to make the most of what we have... we won't leg go till the end but this is by far the most difficult leg we've sailed so far, Fujifilm's hull design has less wetted surface and really enjoys this conditions, whereas from about 12-14 knots of wind upwards we seem to have slight margin.
Next key headland is Dungeness.
Thanks all for the messages of support you are sending, it is really great to receive them and sorry if we cant take the time off racing to answer.
In case you haven't seen them yet, there are some pics and video from the previous leg on www.marconannini.com with fast sailing in the storm, hope you enjoy.