Ten boats into the Southern Hemisphere, next will be Brian Thompson and Dominique Wavre. Thompson's Bahrain Team Pindar is the speed king this morning, along with Mike Golding's Ecover 3.
With ten boats now across the Equator differentials are small among the leading group in the Vendée Globe as they slant SWW, 300 miles NEE of the island of Fernando Noronha.
The gap between leader Loïck Peyron (Gitana Eighty) and Seb Josse (BT) is pretty much static, small gain of about a mile to Peyron, whose track is about 10 miles more to windward of the path taken by BT.
Behind them the changes are small, Vincent Riou (PRB) appears to have made a gain of just less than one mile, lying fourth and is about six miles to windward and ahead of Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) – who gained about 1.6 miles on the leader - while there is still a gap of about 12 miles back to Yann Elies on Générali.
The vanguard are racing in 15-20 knots, upwind. Seas are bouncy and choppy.
Mike Golding is now back up to seventh again, computed to have overtaken Roland ‘Bilou’ Jourdain this morning. Of the top group of ten, Golding has been quickest over the poll period of four hours, making 12.4 knots. He has made a gain of just less than three miles and his line is about 35 miles to the west of those he is chasing. Veolia Environnement is a further 12 miles to leeward of him and Bilou is now eighth.
Dominque Wavre, Brian Thompson, Sam Davies and Marc Guillemot – the next group back - have been on a more westerly course. Thompson is lower and faster at the moment than Wavre’s Temenos II, and over that poll has matched Mike Golding’s top average speed of 12.4 knots, 1.7 knots quicker than Wavre.
And behind them Michel Desjoyeaux, Dee Caffari and Arnaud Boissieres are looking to go more west, and have already diverged 35 miles west of the line taken by those they are chasing.
There look to be frustrating times ahead for Steve White, unfortunately not so much Toe in the Water as slow in the water this morning. He, Jonny Malbon and Unai Basurko are sadly catching the worst of what the reforming Doldrums offer at the moment. Position wise White is not so bad in the west, but Malbon is still 100 miles to the east, and Basurko is 200 miles east.
Bernard Stamm is now 65 miles SSW past the west side of the Cape Verde islands, while his Austrian rival for the moment Norbert Sedlacek has gone east of the islands and is still ahead of the Swiss skipper who restarted.
Derek Hatfield has still got 400 miles to make south to the Cape Verdes, while Jean Baptiste Dejeanty has passed 200 miles west and is now just south of the Canary Islands.
