The lead pack in The Ocean Race Atlantic has bunched into one of the tightest scraps of the campaign, lighter winds squeezing the top three into a gap of less than 11 nautical miles as they claw towards a stubborn ridge of high pressure between them and Lorient.
It has been a brutal few days out in the North Atlantic, but the fleet now gets a breather, of sorts.
At 1200 UTC / 1400 CEST on Monday, Kojiro Shiraishi's DMG MORI Global One (JPN) held top spot with 1,203 nautical miles left to sail. Paul Meilhat's United by the Ocean (FRA) sat second on 1,210nm to go, while Francesca Clapcich's 11th Hour Racing (USA) was third at 1,214nm. Boris Herrmann's Team Malizia (GER) remained firmly in the podium hunt too, 52nm off the pace in fourth.
That's a genuine three-way, arguably four-way, fight with more than a thousand miles still to run.
The moderating conditions, after days of relentless, bone-shaking sailing aboard the foil-assisted IMOCA 60s, have at least let crews grab some food and sleep. DMG MORI Global One's Arisa Moriya described what lies ahead as anything but simple.
"The last two days it was very bumpy in a very strong wind, but now the wind is decreasing," she said. "Over the next two days it will be a very changeable and difficult situation. We have been sailing with a low pressure system, but now we are getting out of the strongest part, and soon we will cross a high pressure system. Then we will have light wind upwind conditions followed by reaching/downwind. So we will have everything over the next few days. We need to sail fast and make good sail choices and just keep pushing."
The Japanese boat had looked out of it after getting stuck in a wind hole on Sunday evening. A more southerly track let them sail a straighter line east than their rivals to the north, and they've clawed right back into the fight.
Clapcich, who has led on the water for much of the race, admitted the new conditions don't suit 11th Hour Racing.
"These upwind medium-to-light winds are not really our strength," she said. "The high pressure is moving but we don't know how fast. Hopefully then we will get into more breeze and it is going to be a reaching angle all the way to the point of Brittany, more or less."
Meilhat, meanwhile, reckons the back half of the crossing could actually get easier, and he's picking a close finish.
"Maybe flatter water will mean higher average speeds," he said. "The race is still really open, because we are moving up against this ridge of no wind, and then the low pressure we have been in will push us towards the finish line again. So, probably, we will arrive all together, which is great for the public watching the race! We have also seen that Malizia can be very fast sometimes, so maybe they will join us before the end."
Further back, there's drama of a different kind. Oliver Heer's Embrace the Challenge spent most of Sunday fixing a torn mainsail, and by Monday afternoon was sailing downwind at 18 knots, 340nm off the lead in fifth. Heer gave his crew a pep talk afterwards.
"I know everyone is tired," he told them. "The last two days were not easy, they were stressful, they were exhausting. As a team, we need to pull together. We are all professionals, and at the end we are doing what we love, which is sailing. The conditions now are really nice, so let's sail as a team, let's communicate, let's listen to each other, sail the boat together, and enjoy the last 2,000 miles."
There's a Kiwi angle worth watching too. Conrad Colman's New Zealand crew aboard MSIG Europe, the fleet's non-foiling entry, has broken free of the light patch that held them up and was making 12 knots downwind on Monday afternoon, 440nm off the lead in sixth. Spirits on board have lifted noticeably.
It showed in Monday's Super Sprint standings as well. With the leaders bogged down in trickier conditions, Embrace the Challenge grabbed their first sprint win of the series ahead of Team Malizia, with MSIG Europe picking up a second podium finish in the mini-contest within the race.
