Vincent Riou (PRB) has made a 20-mile advance on Jean Le Cam (Bonduelle) during the night and now, sailing a lower course to the finish, Mike Golding (Ecover) is 73.5 miles back on Riou. With the equation balancing Vincent’s slightly more favourable course in the north against Le Cam’s advantage in having a few knots more wind on his course about 108 miles to the south. The forecasts suggest that the winds across the Bay of Biscay will head the leading three through the day as they get closer to the coast, and the wind stronger and remaining more settled in terms of direction to the south in the Bay.

For the last few hours the speeds of Vincent and Jean have been similar, but there has been little to choose between the performance of the two in recent hours. Over the four hours average it is advantage Vincent but in over the half hour speed, the snapshot shows Jean with a very slight advantage, but the most impressive feature is probably how Riou has kept his speed up despite what are thought to have been lighter winds.

For Mike Golding on Ecover it will be a tense day, his comeback, when it happens looks like it will be much later and it may look worse before it gets better as he digs deeper looking to reach what he hopes will be the stronger breeze, but at the moment his track has him on course for Bayona, and there is about 167 miles of lateral separation between PRB and Ecover.

Dominique Wavre is still just 28.5 miles ahead of Sébastien Josse today but seems to have a speed advantage.

Despite his keel worries, Conrad Humphreys (Hellomoto) is hanging onto his wake less than 100 miles behind, after gaining a further 10 miles on him overnight. Karen Leibovici (Benefic) is closest to shore this morning, still 6,700 miles from the finish. Karen has passed within 15 miles of the Falklands, which she’ll be leave to port like the majority of competitors in this Vendée Globe.

Positions at 0330 this morning

1 PRB Vincent Riou 48 03.92′ N 12 52.64′ W, 461.3 miles to finish, 9.7 kts boatspeed

2 Bonduelle Jean Le Cam 46 19.44′ N 13 25.40′ W, 481.2 miles to finish, 20.0 miles to leader, 10.0 kts boatspeed

3 Ecover Mike Golding 45 29.68′ N 14 32.88′ W, 534.7 miles to finish, 73.5 miles to leader, 10.5 kts boatspeed