Sam Davies and Roman Attanasio take the lead

As the northeasterlies fill in in the Transat AG2R La Mondiale

See the image above full size here courtesy of Expedition Navigation Systems and PredictWind.

thedailysail rocks! Our prediction in yesterday's report has come true - and so at the latest sched Romain Attanasio and Sam Davies on Saveol have just edged into the lead of the Transat AG2R La Mondiale, after almost a week at sea.

The trade winds have been filling in from the east side of the course over the last 24 hours and the Saveol crew alone positioned themselves mid-way between the group that hugged the Portugese coast and the other potent group to the west, closer to the great circle to the waypoint gate northwest of the Canary Islands.

Yesterday afternoon the easterly group were the first to pick up the breeze - the Generali boats averaged more than 9 knots for the previous four hours leading up to the last sched of the day, compared to the mid-west boats such as the then leader, Groupe Bel, which had made only 5.

At the first sched this morning BritAir, in the same trio as Groupe Bel, had taken the lead, the wind having filled in across the race course overnight averaging just less than 9 knots, while the easterly boats, including Saveol, were making more than 10. And at the latest sched Roman Attanasio and Sam Davies have pulled into first having averaged 10.99 knots for the past four hours, only outpaced by the Generali boats behind them, all forging southwest in the NNEerly 20 knot breeze. However the boats that hugged the coast of Portugal lost so much ground by taking that tactic for what has proved to be too brief a gain that they are still down the pan - over the last 24 hours for example Nicolas Lunven and Jean le Cam on Generali have picked up from 21st place, 141 miles off the lead, to 12th 77 miles behind at the latest sched.

Presently Saveol has 400 miles to go to make the waypoint gate and we expect that over the course of today she will extend her lead, as the Groupe Bel/BritAir/Cercle Vert group converge with them - at present they are powering south on the opposite gybe, attempting to get into the fresher breeze Saveol is enjoying.

Positions at 0748 GMT