With a massive high positioned in her path there is little Ellen MacArthur can do other than skim round the eye and keep the momentum going. She’s currently sailing 6.83kts in wind speeds of 5.6kts and, at 0700 this morning, was still two days, 15 hours ahead of the record.

According to Offshore Challenges MacArthur has three stages to complete before she crosses the line: 1. To get out of the desperately light winds today, 2. Survive a boat-breaking and skipper-breaking 40 knot upwind northerly gale over the weekend, and 3. Pick up more favourable south-east winds off north-west Spain to reach (wind at 90 degrees) to the finish.

To compete the challenge MacArthur still has a total of 946 miles to go and the current situation shows the earliest she’ll arrive is Tuesday. To break the record held by Francis Joyon, MacArthur must cross the Ushant finish line before 0704 on Wednesday 9 February.

More news when we have it.