Conrad Humphreys and Nick Moloney have been battling it out in the last few days but Conrad has managed to pull ahead.

He gained from making a bold decision to gybe south a few days ago and fall back on the fleet in order to get into a better position on the race course. After 3 days Hellomoto has pulled back up to 9th and just overtaken Skandia – position is paramount!

Conrad tells: “I don’t think I pay too much attention to the actual numbers between the fleet, it’s much more about where you are positioned on the race course.”

“Five or 50 miles between boats makes very little difference on a race like this, but where you are positioned is absolutely paramount, as you’ve seen here with Nick on Skandia, he’s got himself in the north, and rather than taking a bold decision and gybing a couple of days ago and taking some pain to get back south, he’s sauntered on and those sorts of decisions cost you 100 miles. I’ve made a similar decision, where I could have stayed with Pro-Form and Arcelor-Dunkerque but I was losing too much so I gybed and sailed south west for a day and went backwards in fleet, but got 100 miles further south than them. Then sure enough, 3 days later I’m back 40m ahead of them.”

“My position against Virbac-Paprec is better as the new breeze came in, I’ve made gains there. The wind picked up around 0430 GMT and I hope in 6 days time we’ll have put some miles back on the track. Mentally I’m focused on this second group, but Alex may slip off the back of the low pressure and fall into this group soon. We’re now very close together and I’m watching Dominique Wavre on Temenos rather than Virbac-Paprec as he’s experienced in the south and must have the bit between his teeth, so if I can keep pace or gain on him I’ll be very pleased.”

“This morning I’m feeling bullish, we’ve been waiting for the breeze for so long. Cape Town is a wonderful place but I didn’t plan to be quite this close! I thought we’d be at around 37 or even 40 degrees by now. It’s another significant waypoint and I have a bottle Champagne Mumm to open as I pass it. The next big waypoint will be Heard Island, where the separation in the fleet will be the most key. If we’ve managed to get south off Cape Town without too much pain, we may be in a position to close in on the leaders. In 12 hours we’re all going to be in 30-35 knots and I aim to keep my genoa and full mainsail up for as long as possible. I’ve got 24 knots from NW right now and we’re making good progress at 17 knots. I put my Gill foulie bottoms on last night in anticipation of the stronger breeze, but it’s so humid here so I’m sweating like a pig!”