Leaders forge south

Form seems to be inextricably set in Around Alone

Once again Bernard Stamm on board Bobst Group-Armor Lux has cruised out into the lead ahead of Thierry Dubois' Solidaires. Currently all of class one are into the Roaring Forties, but the two Frenchmen have been diving south and aside from this creating a shorter route to the first waypoint of Heard Island, the winds are stronger here. Over the last 24 hours Stamm has reeled off 355 miles and Dubois 328 miles while the others to the north have only managed 285.

The weather is currently dominated by an enormous depression lying a long way to their south which the boats look set to stick with for the next couple of days. Behind it is some unpredictable looking weather caused by a high pressure system moving south east from the South African continent and which looks set to intensify the wind.

Positions at 2200GMT

Pos Name Lat Long SOG DTF DTL 24h Run
1 Bobst Group-Armor Lux -45.2 39.7 14 6055.6 355.3
2 Solidaires -44.8 38.7 10 6101.6 46.1 328.1
3 Tiscali -41.5 36.6 10 6261.6 206.1 283.8
4 Ocean Planet -41.2 35.6 10 6290.4 234.8 285.7
5 Pindar -42.7 35.1 11 6293.3 237.8 284.2
6 Hexagon -43.9 34.4 14 6294.1 238.5 289.5

1 Tommy Hilfiger Freedom America-40.6 34 11 6390 290.9
2 Spirit of Canada -40.2 31.6 10 6497 106.9 236.3
3 Spirit of yukoh -39.7 30 10 6576 186 229.9
4 Everest Horizontal -40.3 29 10 6589.5 199.5 222.4
5 BTC Velocity -40.7 27.5 8 6651.8 261.8 175.5
6 Bayer Ascensia -34.2 22.1 NaN 7070.1 680 3.8

See the following pages for reports from Emma Richards, Tim Kent and Bruce Schwab