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'What a rollercoaster and winds all over the place,' reports skipper LEHTINEN. 'Had some good rides in one of the eddies last night, but as wind went light, there was some big swell from somewhere and the eddie twisted to a more southerly direction, a real madhouse was ready. A miracle we didn't shred our kite when sailing out of it.'

'Now looking for a route between bad and good eddies...hoping to have more wind than the fleet further north and closer to the centre of the mild low. Seems like fast kite runs ahead if we still can trust any of this information...at least not a boring moment out here... about 100 spinnaker changes by now! What used to take ten plus minutes on the first leg happens now in 60 seconds!'

After six days of racing, there are still only 13 miles separating the rest of the fleet in terms of distance to finish. 'Well if company was what we wanted on this penultimate leg then company is what we've got,' writes BP Explorer crewmember John BASS. 'Most of the fleet are within a couple of miles of each other and only SAIC La Jolla have separated from the pack to head south.'

Team Stelmar have put in an impressive performance overnight and moved up from fifth place to claim second place.

Meanwhile VAIO and BG SPIRIT are neck and neck in third place. With the north westerly breeze likely to increase, the teams can look forward to some fast downwind over the next 24 hours.