Louis Burton seized the race lead from Charlie Dalin in the late morning and is computed to have a margin of just 5nm.
Damage to the starboard rudder cannot be repaired at sea, and the damage is too severe to continue with the record attempt.
Some skippers have made it be known, after 74 days, they want a few days respite from telling their stories to focus entirely on racing, to remain in the zone.
Predictions have the leaders arriving into Les Sables on the 27th January with as many as six boats arriving on the same day.
Green Dragon wins the IMA Trophy and takes Monohull Line Honours for the RORC Transatlantic Race.
Depression, gales, three storey building sized waves, even the Doldrums, at 72 days most are deeply happy.
The speed race 800 miles northwestwards is towards the point where they each think is fastest and easiest to cross a high pressure ridge of light winds to connect with a North Atlantic’s winter low pressure arriving from Newfoundland.
Racing two-handed across the Atlantic in under 10 days is a remarkable achievement.
Dalin’s more easterly position and his timing seems to have kept him away from a nasty zone of cloud and light winds which slowed Germany’s Boris Herrmann for a period.
Apivia skipper Charlie Dalin, who has led now for two days, is 20 miles ahead of second-placed Louis Burton on Bureau Vallée 2.
Winning the race may be dependent on having a fully-functioning boat, with intact foils.
The escalation in the spread of the new strain of COVID-19 in Europe, the state of lockdown in the UK and concern that a large number of sailors travelling to Antigua could transmit the virus to the Island were all taken into consideration.
The Vendée Globe in effect restarted off Rio de Janeiro today with the five top boats regrouping within 26 miles of each other in terms of the distance to the finish line in Les Sables d’Olonne.
Peter Harburg's supermaxi Black Jack is the biggest of the 400 entries received.
The group of six chasing solo racers is now compressed to within 300 miles of leader Yannick Bestaven.
Having discovered a crack in the shaft of her rudder, Hare had no alternative but to stop her IMOCA 60, drop out the damaged rudder and ship the spare in 20 knots of wind and a big Pacific swell.
