Injured Vendee Globe sailor Yann Eliès, who was rescued from his yacht by the the Australian Navy after breaking his leg, will return to France in a few days. Meanwhile, the mission by his team to salvage the abandoned yacht is in peril. With position reports for his Open 60 no longer being transmitted, Generali is now considered lost at sea some 700 miles south of Australia.

Seb Josse, whose yacht was damaged in a knockdown, still continues northwards on BT, making progress towards the lighter winds of a high pressure system, and Derek Hatfield – whose Algimouss Spirit of Canada sustained broken spreaders early yesterday – makes steady progress north east towards Tasmania.

Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) leads at 88.1 miles ahead of Roland Jourdain, while Sam Davies, GBR, (Roxy) is top international skipper in eighth place.

Since being capsized on Boxing Day Seb Josse has made nearly 500 miles north towards better weather conditions to try to make repairs to the rudder of his BT and see what can be done with the cracking on the deck of the British Open 60. 

Derek Hatfield has made no official decision about retiring from the Vendée Globe and is making steady progress towards Australia preserving his rig which lost the support of two top spreaders after being knocked over late on Saturday night. Canadian Hatfield has had many, many messages of support sent to a skipper whose battle to get to the start line was never, ever easy. He painstakingly built the Owen Clarke design in-house and raised enough funding to start this race by finding more than 10,000 individuals and supporters to contribute. Even in Les Sables d’Olonne at the start his team were still seeking and receiving donations.

Sam Davies, GBR, (Roxy) still holds a strong eighth place. From being 606 miles behind seventh placed Jean Pierre Dick (Paprec-Virbac) she is now 263 miles behind this morning.

At the front of the fleet only Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) has managed to stay within 100 miles of leader Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia).  Jean Le Cam (VM Matériaux) is third at 280.6 miles behind, while the Le Cléach and Riou duo are now the best part of 500 miles behind the leader in fourth and fifth. Again last night the pair passed with less than three miles between them.