Josse has undoubtedly found the most favourable position, making an average of 19.8 knots, 3-4 knots quicker than his nearest rivals on the leaderboard, 2.4 knots faster than Generali over the last two hours, his overnight average only slower than Jourdain.

But the chasing pack, too, continues to gain miles on the leader, Brian Thompson, on Bahrain Team Pindar – who said yesterday he has been hand steering through 4-6 hours of recent days in search of speed – has made a progress of 25 miles.

Loïck Peyron (Gitana Eighty) made a dive toward south, dropping from a lead of nearly 20 miles last night to lie third, 47.8 miles behind Josse, Yann Eliès (Generali) – forever Josse’s shadow, is now second.

Jean Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac 2) progressed to fourth as Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) is now in eighth place.

Biggest position change is that of the hard driving Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) who took three places, going from eighth to fifth.