As the leaders start to realign after the ice gate, concentrating on their course to the Kerguelen Gate now, there are only a couple of small changes in the ranking order on the 1000hrs GMT report.
Seb Josse has increased his small margin at the front of the fleet to a matter of 3.5 miles and is on a converging course now with second placed Jean-Pierre Dick.
Yann Eliès hangs on to third place, 5.9 miles behind Josse, still tracking alongside BT slightly to leeward, to the east of Josse who is in his fifth day at the top of the table.
Jean Le Cam’s tactic at the gate, arriving at a shallow angle to skim the west extremity means he managed to make an initial overnight gain on his rival Roland Jourdain, but has conceded a couple of miles in the last six hours.
Staying north for longest, Armel le Cléach has cut through the gate more recently, heading south and has dropped to ninth, on the same mileage as Mike Golding, GBR (Ecover 3) who is now credited with eighth place. Golding has been making 16.8 knots between 0830hrs and 0930hrs GMT this morning and is second quickest behind the electric pace of Mich Desj (Foncia) who is tenth, and seventy miles behind Golding.
Brian Thompson has continued to make good speeds on Bahrain Team Pindar, quickest of the group around him at over 16 knots, while the fastest of all between the two rankings has been Bernard Stamm, SUI (Cheminées Poujoulat) at 16.6 knots.
