One of the outstanding performances of this Vendee Globe so far has been by Louis Burton on Bureau Vallee II who, despite recent auto-pilot problems, is continuing to hold his own in the top-three on the boat that won the last race.
Up ahead of him, the fascinating battle between Thomas Ruyant on Linked Out in second place and Charlie Dalin, one better than him on Apivia, continues, night and day.
Dalin has been leading for 13 days and right now he and Ruyant are contending with wildly gusting winds and confused seas, about 750 miles northwest of the Kerguelen Islands - one of the windiest places on earth.
Of course Ruyant is handicapped by having lost his port foil. But the interesting aspect of the last few days is how steady the gap has been, given this shortcoming for the LinkedOut skipper and the fact that he has mainly been on starboard tack.
His team management say the key here is that Dalin himself has been having to slow his boat to cope with the sea and wind conditions, allowing Ruyant to stay in touch. The question is how long that can continue and whether Ruyant can remain in contention once the boats start climbing north again in the south Atlantic.
A few days ago Guillaume Verdier, who designed both boats, remarked that while Apivia is an all-rounder, Linked Out has been slightly more optimised for upwind speed and reaching with the Ocean Race in mind.
Marcus Hutchinson, the team manager for LinkedOut says, in reality, the differences are so small they are hard to factor into performance. "The boats are very, very close sisterships," he said. "The most significant differences are only of pencil-thin thickness."
Hutchinson says Ruyant is effectively sailing on two boats - an IMOCA 60 with a split personality. On one tack it flies, on the other it doesn't, while Dalin - whose foil package is his older V1 set-up - is racing a balanced boat.
"When they change gybes, probably this morning, Thomas will have to learn again how to sail his boat as a foiler," explained Hutchinson, "and without taking too many risks.