He has favourable 25 knots winds and is balancing sailing fast with his desire to stay as careful as possible in terms of his routing.

The leading skipper is expected Sunday morning.

While others are trying to find the best route to get back to Les Sables d’Olonne, for the moment that is not the worry for Roland Jourdain.  His immediate goal is to ensure that Veolia Environnement remains as stable as possible.  Riding low in the water, the hull of Bilou’s boat is certainly less efficient, but this is his only, and safest way to sail.  Jourdain is aiming to take his boat to the Azores, before deciding whether he can go all the way to Les Sables d’Olonne. That will depend on the assessment of the likely weather conditions for the final 1200 miles, not least the passage past the notorious Cape Finisterre.

For some of the other competitors, the worries are rather different:  Raphaël Dinelli admitted he is beginning to take stock of his food reserves, while Armel Le Cléac’h knows he will need to finish before 6th February, unless he wants to go on a diet.

Le Cléac’h’s course has been simple and direct since the start of the South Atlantic, and the Vendée Globe rookie, like Brian Thompson and Dee Caffari further behind him, has been blessed with generally favourable wind angles all the way north. Now Le Cléac’h is less than 400 miles behind Veolia Environnement and was making a steady 9-10 knots.

Sam Davies has emerged from the Doldrums this morning with a lead of 107 miles over her rival for fourth place Marc Guillemot on Safran. Roxy’s position – to the east and north of Safran, means that Davies should be able to take first bite at the NE’ly trades this morning and so she might expect her lead to grow still more. Guillemot’s strategy is more long term, he considers, and Davies really needs something closer to two days advantage over Safran, considering his redress, to be able to challenge realistically for his place. Davies had a steady night averaging 11 – 11.5 knots on Roxy, while Guillemot has been slightly quicker this morning.

Dee Caffari has taken back over 60 miles on Brian Thompson since the same time early yesterday morning as the pair work through a relatively compact and not very active belt of Doldrums weather. Thompson had a couple of sticking points yesterday afternoon and evening – small slow downs – but Caffari has been generally quicker.

Steve White is now 390 miles SE of Rio de Janeiro and appears to have more favourable  30 knots easterly breezes for a change. He has been unable to make any impact in the lead of Arnaud Boissières who is 850 miles further up the Brasilian coast than him.

Catching it from two different low pressure systems Rich Wilson is having another difficult 36 hours. Sailing under three reefs in the mainsail and storm jib, he has big breaking seas and described the conditions on Great American III as ‘violent outside, violent inside’.

Raphael Dinelli and Norbert Sedlacek, AUT, (Nauticsport Kapsch) now have 800 and 900 miles respectively to Cape Horn, with the Austrian skipper losing some miles to his French rival over the last 24 hours.

Ends