The traditional southerly route continues to punish Telefonica Blue as the team remains singled-out for an extra dose of upwind punishment. It's slow and frustrating, not least of all because the rest of the fleet has cracked the sheets, put up the spinnakers, and are roaring away.
"We have been battling in the south with lighter winds and a variable direction. Now we are having to watch the rest of the competition blasting along while we plod along upwind," complains Simon Fisher from the Blue boat. "For a while we were tacking every few hours, trying to make progress in the right direction. Perhaps my memory has faded in the last few years but this certainly isn't the Southern Ocean I remember! The Roaring Forties are more like the Boring Forties at the moment!"
Boring or tedious...take your pick. But on Telefonica Blue, the result is the same, lost miles to the rest of the fleet who remain further to the north. But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon according to Fisher.
"Things do look set to improve for us, once we finally get lifted and onto our downwind sails hopefully we will be closer to our optimum speed and things will seem a little less bleak than they do now," he reported this morning. "...Believe it or not I am still smiling. Whilst it would be fair to say this race could be going better I have to admit I am still enjoying my time on the ocean. Everyone on board is still pretty happy and are able to make light of the situation which I'm sure will see us through to the finish."
Meanwhile, over 200 miles to the north, and still the most northerly boat in the fleet, Ericsson 3 continues to reap the benefits from their bold decision to leave the fleet after the scoring gate. Magnus Olsson's Nordic crew has powered through 414 miles over the past 24 hours - the most in the fleet - to solidify their position at the head of the leaderboard.
PUMA retains second place, but is now 115 miles behind Ericsson 3. At this time yesterday, the delta was just 42 miles. But now that the team has turned off the wind a few degrees, boatspeed is up, and so are the spirits aboard il Mostro says media man Rick Deppe.
"Il Mostro is pointed at Cape Horn, sheets are eased and the boat finally gets to do its thing; chew up miles in the ocean. I can't tell you how good it feels to be not going upwind, although the angle we are sailing right now is no more comfortable than if we were...tipped over, bouncy and very wet."
Finally, a taste of the South. For the first time in this leg, all five boats are in the Roaring Forties this morning (or as Simon Fisher dubbed it, the Boring Forties). In terms of wind speed, he's not wrong. At 04:00 GMT, Green Dragon was the only boat in the fleet to report winds above 20 knots. But despite the relatively benign conditions, skipper Ian Wallker says danger is always lurking.
"Yesterday was a perfect example of having to keep our heads," he wrote this morning. "We sailed into the centre of a low pressure and got a 90 degree left hand shift which was exactly as we hoped. The problem was that it takes a few hours for the waves to shift round so we were now heading straight into the waves and the boat was leaping around dangerously. We opted to sail for three hours with a small jib and reefed mainsail in only 16 knots of wind to try and safeguard the structure of the boat but at the cost of precious miles.
"It is very frustrating having to try and slow down when normally you are trying to go as fast as possible. Slowly but surely the waves came round and we have since been averaging more than 20 knots of boatspeed. It feels great to have a spinnaker up and even better to see the miles ticking by. At least there is no more upwind sailing in the short term forecast."
The setting of the spinnaker wasn't the only cause for celebration aboard the Dragon. Watch captain Damian Foxall turned 40 yesterday, although his present was somewhat underwhelming:
"Yesterday was a special day onboard as it was Damian's 40th birthday. Unfortunately all he got for his birthday was a bag of chocolate and a face full of sea water all day long." said Walker. "Happy Birthday anyway Damian and I hope you get to celebrate properly in Rio. Let's hope we are not still out here for your 41st."