The front runners had a good weekend flying down the track to St Miguel , all eight leading boats recorded 24 hr runs of over 200 miles made good Sunday to Monday, with La Promesse  making 283 miles - an average of just under 12 kts. Sandy is in front of class 2. Leave him a message here

In Class 3 Chris Tibbs had a great day in Taika making 216 miles ahead of Roger and Flic in Elixir who did 203 miles noon to noon.

Chris Rustom in Ding Dong made up for an un-characteristic first day with a 216 mile run to get back  to within 6 miles of  Rob and Charlie's 217 miles in Jbellino.

The breeze was predicted to back north west then west for a time today and this has slowed the tail end of the fleet first with the rich getting richer as usual. A weak cold front tonight will bring some rain but the wind after the front is veered  to north west so those high of the rhumb line will be happy.

The brisk conditions have caused some casualties; Ninjod has retired with pilot issues and damaged main sail cars, eta Falmouth midnight tonight.  Fortitude, the class 40 with broken forestay is 350 miles distant and making 6 knots should be back on Thursday,  Outrageous is secure in Falmouth after self steering problems.

Estimated IRC ranking at 1400 Tuesday ( caution classes1 and 2 are quite volatile)
      
Class1; Franglais, Calypso, Christina

Class2; Slippery K, Equilibrium, Vela Fresca

Class3; Taika, Elixir, Truant

Class4; La Promesse. Jammy Dodger, Jbellino

The single handers will be feeling the pace as they move into the third day and night at sea, traditionally the most difficult time when racing solo as sleep deprivation, nausea, dehydration, constipation and anxiety conspire to produce an exquisite cocktail of woes, the best solution is to sleep, preferably under a tree !