Vincent Riou (PRB) and Armel le Cléac’h (Brit Air) are the same distance 21.8 miles behind Josse, and Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) has continued his advance to lie seventh, gaining four places since yesterday morning.

Now it is about angle or pressure. There is reckoned to be better breezes away from the centre of the high, but those closer benefit from being able to gybe earlier. At the front the gaps, which remain small, nevertheless indicate the game of strategy is underway. Those furthest east, Josse (BT) and Jean Le Cam on VM Matériaux have gained, Le Cam now less than 40 miles from the new leader.  Out west, they are setting up to be the first to gybe, when the wind veers NE'ly and they might slip ahead of those closer to shore…

The chasing pack are in close contact like Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) and Vincent Riou (PRB), others suffering from weed or other problems around the appendages like Roland Jourdain on Veolia Environnement  who wrote this morning: «  Stopped during the night to clear the keel. The good thing was that it was easy to do in the beautiful moonlight, which lights us up as if we were indoors. »  The stresses of the first few days are behind them and gradually the sailors are finding the pace of the Vendée Globe, and enjoying what they came here for. There are the simple pleasures: better sailing conditions to work the the boat, easing along at speed on the swell…

Mike Golding reported in this morning that while the winds are fairly regular in direction, the seas are still quite big and the breeze still gusty. Golding on Ecover 3 is in eleventh place and seemed content, under the wind conditions, to be holding station against the leaders’ pace. Golding indicated this morning that he felt he was going well now, as evidenced as he moves eight miles clear of Dee Caffari, 12th, on Aviva.

Brian Thompson (Bahrain Team Pindar) is starting to gain a little from his inshore lane, and no doubt the power of his Juan K design, rising to 13th ahead of Sam Davies (ROXY) in 14th. 

Dominique Wavre (Temenos 2) is still making fair progress in his catch up challenge, he is finding Steve White (Toe in the Water) a tough nut to crack at the moment.

Twentieth placed Unai Basurko on Pakea Bizkai. reported to his team: 
'This two days we have not been able to sail for the race, we have bee making efforts to survive. I hope we can now start sailing and live the race' said Unai by the telephone. 'It has been really hard, we knew the difficulty of this zone and what could wait for us. Now the wind is calming down and the sailing is more bearable. I am very well and so is the boat' 

But for the others, disappointment : Marc Thiercelin, the skipper of DCNS, reached La Coruna this morning and is finding it difficult to come to terms with this forced return to land.

Frustration for Derek Hatfield has to repair his mast track on Algimouss Spirit of Canada and is relying on help from the Pindar and Ecover teams for some spares at the moment, so tight is his budget,

For Yannick Bestaven (Aquarelle.com) and Kito de Pavant (Groupe Bel) they can see their dreams slipping away, while Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss was due to enter the port this morning.