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5 April 2005, 10:53 am

All Change At The Front

Trophée BPE

Light winds mean the slow start to the transatlantic race towards Cienfuegos de Cuba is continuing and the tightly packed fleet is seeing switches at the top of the leaderboard. Yesterday's leader Charles CAUDRELIER (FRA) has dropped to fourth with Jeanne GREGOIRE (FRA) now occupying the number one spot.

GREGOIRE on Banque Populaire leads Gildas MORVAN's (FRA) Cercle Vert by just 0.8nm as the fleet slowly pulls away from Saint Nazaire, France after entering the third day of racing.

Dropping one place from yesterday to third is Eric DROUGLAZET (FRA) on Credit Maritime-Zerotwo, 2.7nm behind the leader. CAUDRELIER is another 2.9nm further back and is the final boat in the leading pack of four, which seems to have pulled out slightly from the fleet. Britain's Sam DAVIES on Skandia is doing her best to join this group and is currently the second fastest boat in the fleet and has narrowed the gap to the leader to 10.3nm.

In her email log this morning DAVIES recalled the frustrating conditions: 'We are going upwind on Port tack, skirting around the top of the high pressure. Since the start we have had all kinds of different wind, and mainly very light stuff (between one and two knots for all of the first night!) Finally, yesterday afternoon, the NW wind filled in and we managed to get going fast at last - nine knots in the right direction.'