For a brief spell, Jean Le Cam just nipped into the lead but this has clearly spurred Alex who has opened up a small lead, but he is sailing faster now. Good speeds in perfect conditions, one can only feel envious!
The average speeds for the leading boats were all close to 15 knots over the previous 24 hours. Boris Herman fractionally the best but only by a mile in the day.
So now they are in the Trade Winds, just over halfway between the Canaries and the Cape Verde Islands. In a couple of days they will start to experience the change in the wind direction as they approach the equator and the Southern Hemisphere wind rotation.
This is another tactical situation, although currently the Doldrums are not showing anything to worry about, but that can change very quickly as we all know. The interesting thing will be to see how far west in longitude the boats are as they cross the equator. Historically, it was usually best, which means quickest, between 27 and 29 degrees west.
Fascinating to observe.