At 0700hrs this Monday morning the whole peloton remains relatively tightly packed with 28 boats in a ten miles by ten miles space. Ireland’s Tom Dolan (Smurfit Kappa-Kingspan) is a narrow leader having chosen to stay further south, to windward, by about seven miles of the duelling Guillaume PIrouelle (Région Normandie) and Tom Laperche (Région Bretagne-CMB Performance). Swiss skipper Nils Palmieri (TeamWork) is fourth just behind Dolan, while Spain’s Pep Costa (Team Play 2 B- Terravia) who led last night is fifth and taking the more middle course. The fleet continue to make decent speeds -7.5 to 8 kts -having made a good 60 miles since rounding the Arcachon mark last night. PIrouelle led around at 23:41hrs ahead of Laperche who was two minutes behind, almost overlapped with Corentin Horeau (Mutuelle Bleue). Costa was sixth seven minutes after Pirouelle, Dolan eighth 12 minutes back and Alan Roberts (Seacat Services) was 11th 13 minutes behind.

Fred Duthil (Le Journal des Enterprises) is heading back to port, retiring, because of a back injury, a big disappointment after his third on the first leg and so hoping for a strong conclusion to his 13th participation

Yann Chateau, race director, reported in this morning, “It was a smooth downwind to Arcachon under spinnaker, now heading west under spinnaker or gennaker – there are different choices – where there are different options being taken – according to the weather files which will open the game today. There was more wind last night with 20-25kts more than on the original models. It is quieter this morning with 12kts of wind, with that first gybe in the small hours of the morning. All is good.”

Arthur Hubert ( MonAtoutEnergie.fr ) has just dived under his boat successfully at 0730hrs to resolve a technical issue.

Dolan spoke to the media boat this morning,“The conditions are perfect to catch some sleep so I have been napping regularly. All is good. The passage of the Arcachon mark was a little more windier than expected, we had up to 25 knots and we were flying. This allowed me to press on hard and I got back into the leading group. It was quite busy with lots of boats at the mark, especially behind me. This morning just before daybreak, there is 10/12 knots of wind. We are under big spinnaker, no sea except for a little swell gently caressing the back of the boat. And we have loads of stars and the sunrise in the distance. The wind will veer today and we will have to change sails tacking upwind as the wind builds.”