Cook Strait bound

Private match races continue in the Barcelona World Race

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Positions at 0830 GMT

The leaders in the Barcelona World Race are now firmly into Australian waters, Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron on board Virbac-Paprec 3 having fulfilled the second of the two waypoint gates at 46°S aimed at keeping the fleet within range of the Australian rescue services. However while they remain comfortably ahead, their lead is being eaten into with Iker Martinez and Xabi Fernandez now 583 miles astern of them, compared to 744 miles 48 hours ago. In fact all the fleet has made inroads into the leaders with the exception of the three backmarkers. This is partly due to Virbac-Paprec 3's slow progress yesterday, as she attempted to pass the second Aussie waypoint gate.

With a depression due south of them, the lead group are all making good progress this morning in strongish northwesterlies or southwesterlies - depending upon which side of the front they are on. Because of this, and despite the lighter conditions they saw yesterday, Virbac-Paprec 3 hasn't seen the need to dive back south as she (and others in the race) have previously done when they have passed a waypoint gate.

At present the leaders are the south of two giant zones of high pressure - one in the Tasman Sea and the other just to the east of the Amsterdam gate that Mirabaud and Neutrogena have just passed - and it is these that will affect the progress of the fleet as much as the depressions deep in the Southern Ocean for the rest of the week. The front associated with the depression is forecast to pass over Virbac Paprec 3 tonight and the European model has the high encroaching towards the great circle towards Bass Straight tomorrow, so it is likely that the leaders will be forced south slightly. Aside from this they appear to have favourable westerlies taking them most of the way towards Bass Strait.

Meanwhile various match races continue to take place thorughout the fleet. Estrella Damm continue to hound Mapfre, this morning just 13 miles astern, both boats closing on the western end of the second Australian waypoint gate. Ryan Breymaier and Boris Herrmann on Neutrogena had closed to within 4 miles of Dominique Wavre and Michelle Paret's Mirabaud on Monday morning but since then the experience Franco-Swiss duo have extended away, their advantage back up to 77 miles at the latest sched. These two boats are now a weather system behind the front runners.

Similarly Andy Meiklejohn and Wouter Verbraak on Hugo Boss are gunning hard to overtake Dee Caffari and Anna Corbella on GAES, having closed from 78 to 21 miles astern over the last 48 hours. Once again Hugo Boss is the fastest boat in the fleet at the moment, both boats roaring along in stiff northwesterlies with some 370 miles to go to the western end of the Amsterdam waypoint gate.