Brian Thompson admitted he and Dee Caffari are pleased to be in the mix

Brian Thompson, co-skipper Aviva.

"We have been trying to keep on top of everything because it is going to be very tricky over the next few days. We are setting ourselves up to enter this area of strong upwind conditions and that may not be all about strategy but about keeping ourselves and the boat together."

"As we get into the stronger winds we’ll be getting the sails down below, making sure we have had enough to eat, drink and sleep. It is exciting stuff. We should be down to very small sails and so not too many sail changes, just a case of looking after everything."

"It is very inclusive out here. We are both getting involved in everything and trying to take naps of 45 minutes and then Dee is downloading all the weather for us and then comes up on watch. I go down and look through the weather and we come up with a strategy."

"I think they are fairly similar. The sails are a little bit lighter if anything, that would be the main difference. But really they are not vastly different."

"Right now I am looking out the window and I am looking at Groupe Bel and we are having a very close battle, they are probably four hundred metres or so away from us at the moment and we can see the logos on their main really quite clearly at the moment. So that is pretty exciting and shows how close these boats are at the moment. And I am sure that if Pindar and Aviva were racing like this it would be pretty close. If anything he is going a tiny, tiny bit faster."

"We have gennaker, staysail and full main, about 20 knots of wind. It is quite showery. At the moment we are all on the north side of the trough, maybe with the exception of Michel."

"I think he is trying to avoid the worst of the weather and come through a little bit further south. That is the kind of thing he did in the Route du Rhum and won. It is not necessarily the fastest routing. If we are slowed down because it is too rough to sail to our potential."

"The question for us is how close to the centre of the low you want to get, to get a lift on starboard because the wind will be more NW the more W you are, but to get W you need to do a lot of beating upwind on port, taking you closer to the low. And also that is not going to take you very close to the mark, that is the trade off really, whether it is better to go on starboard and sail more miles."