After a full day of racing Sill Plein Fruit holds the lead position. However, while Kingfisher was busy chasing Sill on a northerly path, away from the rest of the fleet, ECOVER stole second position from Ellen. At the 1930 GMT sched yesterday evening, ECOVER was three miles ahead of Kingfisher.

And, while ECOVER and Sill show almost exactly the same distance to the finish, they are nowhere in sight of one another. While most of Sunday Sill, with Kingfisher following, had pursued their own northerly course, Golding and his ECOVER team continued putting miles into their southerly course. When he did finally turn north late this evening his distance to the finish dropped like a rock and vaulted him in front of Kingfisher.

FILA has continued to hold tightly to fourth position, now must 8 miles behind the leader and just five behind Kingfisher. Gartmore is lagging 16 miles behind the front-runner and AlphaGraphics, sticking stubbornly to her deep southerly course, is 35 miles in the hole.

Winds across the fleet dropped as predicted during the early evening and are unlikely to freshen again until mid-day today. Then tonight and all day Tuesday a gale is predicted to rake the fleet with winds up to 50 miles an hour.