If the fleet has been anxious to gain a breather from the 'power-reaching' conditions of the past week, they better be careful what they wish for ... the Doldrums are about to provide relief of a sort. Of course, when you're in a race, it won't take too long before the sailors begin lamenting the slow speeds characteristic of a Doldrums crossing.

"This should be the last day of the relentless hard reaching for us. Not much to do tactically and not much to do navigation-wise as we've been unable to download any weather information for over 24 hrs but that's not to say that there is nothing to do. Upstairs it is all on with constant spray, big shifts and pushing the boat as hard as we can in the breeze we have," explained Telefonica Blue navigator Tom Addis.

At 04:00 GMT, the True Wind Speed for Ericsson 4 and PUMA was down in the 11 to 12 knot range. Ericsson 3, just 70 miles to the north, was seeing wind speeds of 14 knots, while Telefonica Blue, some 215 miles north had wind over 18 knots. That was translating into a boatspeed difference of over 4 knots.

So the normal Doldrums compression is beginning today, and how much that allows the backmarkers back into the game remains to be seen. The first piece of good news for Ericsson 4 is that they were able to nearly triple their 17 mile lead over PUMA over the past 24 hours. This morning, it's stretched out to 49 miles.

The second ray of sunshine for Torben and his men comes from the fact that everybody is sailing down their line behind them. Everyone, that is, but Green Dragon, who have taken up a line some 100 miles to the east of the one sailed by Ericsson 4.

For Telefonica Blue, the chase is on. The team is desperate to make up lost ground after starting over 19 hours in arrears of the fleet.

"It's been a very one-way track since the start - drag racing vs track racing with minimal opportunities to gain - to gain big miles anyway," wrote Addis again. "The leaders are still pretty much at the range they were when we restarted with the bungy cord only stretching and shrinking a bit over the last week. We've managed to get in front of the Dragons but that's about it. We should see a pretty big compression over the next few days so we may get within fighting range again in the more varied stuff to come."

The Doldrums is the most likely spot for a shake-up. And those behind will be anxious not to let the leaders poke their nose out and into the new breeze early. Once that happens, the 'bungy' that Addis referred to will stretch out again, and there's a very real danger a team can get left behind.

Meanwhile, in the middle of fleet, Ericsson 3 skipper Magnus Olsson is already looking forward to the Southern Ocean. And not just for the extreme sailing conditions of the Roaring 40's. Ericsson 3 media man Gustav Morin wrote in that Magnus was disappointed with the lack of wildlife over the past week. And he's been regaling the crew with tales of what they can expect in the South.

"It will be different in the Southern Ocean which is full of life. The birds down there are just fantastic," Olsson has promised his crew.

But first, there's that tricky matter of the Doldrums, and Ericsson 3 is just about there. "The next 24 hours will probably be quite interesting," Morin writes. I'm sure he's right. Be sure to check in this afternoon to see whether the fleet is indeed compressing. And of course, Mark Chisnell will have a Monday morning 10 ZULU report to explain all the weekend happenings.