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Whilst the yachts courses converged to ensure they left the imaginary waypoint to port, they are already beginning to spread out again as they decide how to position themselves for the 2000 mile sprint to the finish.

A fresh south westerly breeze will help to speed the teams on their way for a while longer, but another patch of light airs looms ahead. Negotiating this area could be a deciding moment in this race and, depending on how onboard tacticians play their cards, could be an opportunity for teams to make a break from the a pack.

SAIC La Jolla have held onto and extended their lead since this morning's poll. Eero LEHTINEN and his team are currently nearly 30 miles ahead of nearest rival BG SPIRIT and could well see their lead increase over the coming hours as they manage to make over 0.5 knot faster than the rest of the teams.

The racing is still incredibly close in the chasing pack - only seven miles separate yachts placed second to ninth - and there has been considerable movement in leaderboard standings: Pindar have moved from ninth to seventh and Imagine It. Done. have pushed up from eighth to fifth place.

"We have spent every night and most days in the company of other Challenge Yachts in the fleet," comments Imagine It. Done. skipper Dee CAFARRI. "It certainly makes the racing exciting and is driving crew morale high. Radars are constantly being monitored to check if gains and losses are being made and who else is going to appear on the horizon."

Team Save the Children and Samsung have been struggling with boat speed recently, both averaging around 5knots, and Me To You has also been hampered after a spinnaker blow-out yesterday.

Me To You skipper James ALLEN describes what happened: "Our trouble with our spinnakers continues: we blew the Promo yesterday which is causing us a few problems, however the sewing circle has been doing a great job and should have it fixed by lunchtime today. The spinnakers are getting very weak now and although we are very careful with them one freak gust of wind is often enough to cause major damage.

'Morale is generally high and we are all working incredibly hard to catch those boats on the horizon. With 10 days or so to go to La Rochelle it is all very much all to play for!"