Team SEB’s move south has been followed by illbruck but the rest of the fleet is following the more conventional path to the southwest to gain sea room

SEB has turned due south after rounding Ushant and illbruck is following her from a distance of five miles. Figures polled at 1600 give Gurra Krantz’s SEB a five-mile lead over John Kostecki’s pre-race favourite. Both boats are sailing in a six-knot breeze, broad reaching on a port gybe with leader SEB making 7.4 knots and third-placed illbruck 7.9 knots.

Kevin Shoebridge’s Tyco currently holds second-place. Steve Hayles’ reading of the meteorology has prompted him to plot a course of 254° and Grant Dalton’s Amer Sports One is nine miles down her track in fourth place. Both boats are making five knots southwest, with a knot of favourable tide, in less than five knots of breeze

Navigator Mark Rudiger has placed Assa Abloy five miles off Amer Sports One’s starboard beam and she moves into fifth. Six miles further north, Knut Frostad’s djuice is sixth with Jez Fanstone’s News Corp seventh and Lisa McDonald’s Amer Sports Too eighth. The pressure gradient flattens out to the north to give the Nautor girls on Amer Sports Too – second most northerly boat – less than three knots of breeze.

Front to back is just 21 miles and the significance of this parting of meteorological opinion is still unclear but this wouldn’t be the first time Krantz had completely wrong-footed the opposition to snatch a leg-winning lead.