Agony or ecstasy in Portimao Global Ocean Race

8:27 PM Mon 3 Nov 2008 GMT

'Jos? Mu?oz drives Desafio Cabo de Hornos www.desafiocabodehornos.com- Portim?o Global Ocean Race' Portim?o Global Ocean Race

Incredibly, after more than three weeks of hard racing in the Portim?o Global Ocean Race, Desafio Cabo de Hornos and Team Mowgli find themselves dead even in terms of distance-to-go.

Team Mowgli is slightly to the south and west of the Chilean boat with both boats in sight of each other. For a brief moment Sunday the Chileans were ahead but that has again reversed much to the delight of Jeremy Salvesen on board Team Mowgli. 'We are out in front again,' he wrote. 'We must be driving them mad! Hope we are keeping all the fans back home happy. We have been able to see their masthead light in the distance since about 2am this morning - and it's been in the right place all time time. Behind us. Now daylight has broken we can just make out the shape of their sail on the distant horizon at a bearing of about 40 degrees from us. So they are still a bit east but we are a bit further south. The race continues.'

Indeed, the race continues and fortunately the flat calm conditions that plagued the mid-fleet boats over the weekend seem to be a thing of the past. Felipe Cubillos on board Desafio Cabo de Hornos seems pleased to have found some new wind that has brought on a new lease on life for him and his co-skipper Jos? Mu?oz. 'Racing around the world has a lot of agony as well as ecstasy,' he wrote. 'Over the weekend we were literally floating in circles under a clear blue sky and a deep blue sea. That was total agony. Late Sunday afternoon we saw a line of black clouds approaching from the west and figured it must be a cold front approaching. We were right and now we have 17 knots of wind with boat speed just under 9 knots. This is pure ecstasy.'

As usual on board Hayai it's all ecstasy, at least it seems that way reading Nico Budel's logbook. There is never a moment when he seems to be finding the race a grind or the conditions trying. Instead Nico is enjoying every slap of water over the foredeck and, for now, the last few bits of fresh food on board. 'My fruit supply is running low,' he wrote. 'I should have listened to my wife and taken more fruit for the leg as I find it delicious. I know better now and I do still have one apple and two oranges, plus plenty of canned fruit.'

To the north of Hayai on board Kazimir Partners it's all agony. 'We just can't seem to find the right kind of winds,' Lenjohn wrote. 'Where the others had nice downwind sailing we seem to find only headwinds. It just doesn't seem right but we are now well past the Recife Gate and will find some good breeze to propel us south to Cape Town.'

On board Roaring Forty skipper Michel Kleinjans is having problems of his own, but they are not serious. 'I have run out of things to read,' he moaned in an email to Race HQ. 'I brought three books and I have read them all. The sailing for the past few days has been a bit boring. Sailing upwind is not that much fun and neither is having no wind so all I could do was read and wait for better conditions. Next leg I am taking eight books.' Kleinjans continues to sail his own race keeping a reasonable gap between himself and chasing Class 40s, Team Mowgli and Deasfio Cabo de Hornos. Roaring Forty is slightly to the north of the two boats but his position well to the east has him around 65 miles closer to Cape Town along a great circle route. It's a tenuous lead as another low pressure system spinning off the coast of Brazil brings the promise of more wind to all three boats, but those closer to the South American coast will get the wind first and may have an advantage.

Nothing is fazing the Germans on Beluga Racer. Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme continue to steam south like an unstoppable train. At the 18:20 UTC poll Beluga Racer was the fastest boat in the fleet, again, by a substantial margin. It seems as if the weather gods are smiling on Germany for this leg, but there is still a long way to go to South Africa. The pundits have predicted that Boris and Felix have turned for Cape Town a little too early and may find themselves caught in the grip of high pressure should it reform over the top of them. Only time will tell. Stay tuned.