  We study the growth of an elongated phase-fluctuating condensate from a
non-equilibrium thermal cloud obtained by shock-cooling. We compare the growth
of the condensate with numerical simulations, revealing a time delay and a
reduction in the growth rate which we attribute to phase fluctuations. We
measure the phase coherence using momentum Bragg spectroscopy, and thereby
observe the evolution of the phase coherence as a function of time. Combining
the phase coherence results with the numerical simulations, we suggest a simple
model for the reduction of the growth rate based on the reduction of bosonic
stimulation due to phase fluctuations and obtain improved agreement between
theory and experiment.
