Sailing: Sanderson roars away from southerly calms

As Britain's Neal McDonald berthed the Swedish entry Ericsson back in Mosselbaai, South Africa, with a broken keel ram and Torben Grael took Brasil 1 into Port Elizabeth for major structural repairs, the leading trio of ABN 1, Paul Cayard in Pirates of the Caribbean and Sébastien Josse in ABN 2 were charging east at more than 20 knots. They had paid the price of working their way south through a zone of light air as Bouwe Bekking in Spain's movistar had pushed further north and east. But Bekking could do nothing once Sanderson had picked up the "Roaring Forties" westerlies to surge past Cayard.

The dilemma for McDonald is whether to try, with replacement equipment that is different in specification from the titanium ram which broke, to set off probably 1,000 miles behind. The leg, in effect, counts double points with stage gates at the Kerguelen Islands and Eclipse Island, off the south-west coast of Australia.

Grael is indicating he will retire from the leg and ship the yacht to Melbourne. McDonald, hit by keel ram problems on the first leg, is likely to do the same.