Intro:

Just west of Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean, MACIF's lead in the Vendee Globe stood at 141 miles at 1500 Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday.

Script:

It is estimated the 2012-13 Vendee Globe, a single-handed round-the-world yacht race, will begin to conclude around the 26th or 27th of January.
Frenchman Francois Gabart is still in pole position.

In the four hours up to 3 O'clock GMT on Saturday, Gabart made only minor gains - 1.2 miles to be precise - on second-placed man Armel Le Cleac'h.

That put the MACIF skipper 141 miles ahead of his fellow countryman.

Mike Golding is now in fifth position, after a long battle with Jean Le Cam, which is sure to continue.

Le Cam beat Golding into third place in the 2004-05 race.

Alex Thomson is currently fourth but up to 3 O'clock, he had conceded 26 miles to the leader on Saturday, averaging only 12.6 knots in the four hours since the previous ranking.

More significantly, he had conceded the same number of miles to third-placed Jean-Pierre Dick, whose average of 15.4 knots was only 0.1 knots less than Gabart.

Thomson is still far to the west of the rest and consequently his VMG (velocity made good) is the least direct to the finish but he may be the first to pick up the westerly tradewinds that will eventually replace the northeasterly ones.