Solitaire du Figaro - around Wolf Rock

Fabien Delahaye and Morgan Lagravière match racing for the lead as Sam Goodchild holds 11th

Earlier this morning, the 36 solo skippers in La Solitaire du Figaro rounded Wolf Rock and are now heading east along the south coast of Cornwall bound for the Lizard.

Positions at 0548 UTC

Yesterday at around 0900 UTC the leaders completed their beat to Pointe de Penmarche and cracked sheets for the Raz de Sein, which they passed through at lunchtime. They then forged on, with race leader Fabien Delahaye on Skipper MACIF 2012 passing Le Conquet at the entrance to the Chenal du Four mid-afternoon. Overnight the boats have been heading north, bound for Wolf Rock. Delahaye was first to round this mark off Land's End at 0530 this morning with Morgan Lagravière on Vendée on his transom.

Last night's Channel crossing ended up being a fairly brutal port tack fetch in 20 knot northwesterlies, but provided a welcome tactical opportunity for the skippers after a rather processional trip along France's Atlantic coast since starting from St Gilles Croix de Vie on Sunday. Some west to east divide opened up crossing the Channel with the Artemis Offshore Academy's Sam Goodchild and Adrien Hardy on AGIR Recouvrement taking a more easterly route north. Goodchild continues to have the best Solitaire leg he has so far had in his two year career in the Figaro class, presently holding 11th place.

Several skippers, particularly the ones who lost out on Sunday night going to seaward of Belle Ile, have been on the rise. In particular Jean-Pierre Nicol on Bernard Controls and Vincent Biarnes on Prati-Buches have both gained 10 places in the last 24 hours, but not far behind, after his rotten start, is Britain's Nick Cherry, who has pulled back nine places and is currently up to 23rd, having overtaken team mate Henry Bomby. 

This morning Morgan Lagravière reported: "There have been no great options but you really had to keep the boat powered up. Generally it is rather positive. A small gap has been created this morning between Yann (Elies ) and Lulu (Nicolas Lunven) and Fabian (Delahaye) and me. We must see how it goes. I was quite satisfied throughout the night, because I was able to rest a lot. This is a thing that was a priority at that point."

Over the course of today as the boats make their way along the south coast of the UK under spinnaker to the Needles Fairway Buoy they will see the wind slowly backing from the northwest into the west, mostly in the 15-20 knot region.