In the last six hours, Illbruck has claimed back another five miles over Dalton’s Amer Sports One. Now with just 15 miles between the leading two boats, the next few hours could see some dramatic place changes at the boats enjoy the 16 knot sleigh ride in the 18-20 knots of breeze.

Team SEB, Djuice Dragons and Amer Sports Too have missed a vital weather window and will now have a long, arduous eight/ten day upwind slog to Cape Town.

“We are looking at a 2,000-mile beat. Not the sort of sailing one wants to do with these boats,” commented SEB skipper Gurrar Krantz this morning.

Under the old elapsed time scoring system, this leg would have been the death knell for their overall race winning hopes, but as Krantz remarked, “Thank God for the points system”.

In the last two Whitbread races, Krantz has been on yachts (Intrum Justitia and Swedish Match) that have had disappointing opening legs but have gone on to win the second leg across the Southern Ocean and place in the top three overall.

Position Report, Day 30, 1000hrs GMT

1 AONE

2 ILBK (15 miles to leader)

3 NEWS (269 miles to leader)

4 (TYCO 401 miles to leader)

5 AART (532 miles to leader)

6 TSEB (918 miles to leader)

7 DJCE (920 miles to leader)

8 ATOO (964miles to leader)