Back up to speed

There was another park-up yesterday but Elies still a nose ahead with boats expected to reach Gijon tonight

Tenacious to the last, Yann Elies on Groupe Queguiner/Journal des Entreprises continues to maintain his grip on La Solitaire du Figaro after losing the lead momentarily yesterday first to Fabienne Delahaye on Skipper MACIF 2012 and then to Morgan Lagraviere on Vendee.

The fleet had another monumental park up yesterday lunchtime as they encountered the area of high pressure. From 21 miles separating first from last in the morning, so this reduced to 14 miles by the afternoon. Early afternoon and the top 15 boats were back to within three miles of the lead, the top 25 within four miles. The frontrunners were first into the new breeze as it filled in from the east. The biggest risers through this reshuffle were ex-Banque Populaire maxi-tri crewman Thierry Chabagny on Gedimat who rose from 22nd to 7th at the latest sched, while Thomas Normand on Financiere de L'Echiquier and Damien Guillou on La Solidaire Mutualiste both achieved similar double figure position leaps over this period.

Overnight the breeze increased into double figures, propelling the boats down the course at speed.

Despite the building wind speed, so fog has been present still on the race course and with visibility at times down to 0.2 mile, so Race Director Gilles Chiorri has been acting as liaision between shipping and the Solitaire fleet. As a rather nervous Yann Elies recounted: "The conditions were tough tonight ... Visibility was nearly zero, 0.3 miles at best. I almost hit a cargo ship! It was about 200-300ft away from me. Gilles managed to make him change course by 30°. And my IPad is history - it fell overboard! But that's nothing compared to what could have happened. Currently I am under spinnaker in 12-15 knots of wind from the ENE, which is expected to veer into the ESE this morning. We are not yet out of the woods."

Morgan Lagravière reported from Vendée: "I have not slept all night. The conditions are difficult and have changed since yesterday. We went from a dead calm to a more steady wind. You have to be constantly at the helm. At present I am tight reaching under spinnaker making an average of 10 knots since the wind returned."

The easterly flier of Portugal's Francisco Lobato on Roff came to nothing dropping him from 15th place to 28th.

The boats are expected into Gijon early this evening.

Overnight, there was a second abandonment following on from Jean-Pierre Nicol on Bernard Controls yesterday. Jean Paul Mouren, the longest serving member of the Figaro community, had an alternator problem aboard his Groupe SNEF was forced to throw in the towel. Without electricity to power the masthead lights, the autopilot, his computer, navigation gear, etc... Mouren was forced pull out from this opening leg. Both he and Nicol will make it to Gijon for the start of leg two to the Beneteau stronghold Saint Gilles Croix de Vie on 1 July. 

Among the Artemis Offshore Academy sailors, Sam Goodchild is now ahead of Nick Cherry, lying in 21st and 22nd positions respectively 12 and 12.9 miles off the lead.

Positions at 05:48 UTC