The leading five boats rounded the Italian island of Ustica overnight through a powerful thunderstorm, with sheets of lightning illuminating the sky and heavy rain hammering the decks. Wind, however, was in short supply. The threat of a sudden squall kept crews on edge as they crept downwind along Ustica's shoreline with sails barely filled, every sailor aboard fully alert.
The racing remained tight despite the turbulent conditions. Just 11 nautical miles split the top four boats, with Yoann Richomme's Paprec Arkéa holding the leg lead by approximately three miles over Paul Meilhat's Biotherm in second. Boris Herrmann's Team Malizia had rounded the waypoint in third, with Ambrogio Beccaria's Allagrande Mapei pressing hard in fourth.
Francesca Clapcich, the Italian sailor aboard Team Malizia, described just how challenging the Ustica rounding had been. "There were two waypoints – one north and one south – on the northern side of the island of Ustica," she explained. "We are in fourth position and we are still in the fight. It was definitely extremely tricky: we had thunderstorms and lightning, a lot of windshifts. Most of the time we were on the wrong side of the shift [which was] quite frustrating but it's part of the game.
"Now we are making our way south and going around Sicily. We are making our way slowly but surely. There is still some lightning outside, lots of clouds, there are so many squalls. The Med is not a joke – especially this time of year. I'm looking forward to getting a bit further south and into the Adriatic where hopefully it will be a little bit more stable. We will see."
After clearing Ustica, the leaders initially faced upwind work in around 10 knots of westerly breeze before the wind swung northerly and the racing transformed entirely. The leading group surged past the small island of Favignana, off Sicily's western tip, at foiling speeds exceeding 20 knots.
The top four had by then broken into two separate match races. Paprec Arkéa and Biotherm were locked in their own private battle for the leg lead, while Allagrande Mapei and Team Malizia fought it out just behind, both pairs within visual range of each other. With rivals clearly visible and sleep deprivation building, the pressure aboard all four boats was high. Crews were forced to divide their attention between squeezing every fraction of speed from their own boats in the shifting, cloud-disrupted conditions and keeping a close eye on what their opponents were doing with their sail trim.
Skipper Boris Herrmann kept watch over Team Malizia's navigation screen and offered a sharp assessment of where things stood relative to Allagrande Mapei. "At the moment we are averaging 12.9 [knots] and Mapei they average about eight – so [we are] a couple of knots quicker," he said. "We can see them. It depends on how you are under the clouds and whether you are lucky or not. We have the spinnaker up and they have the J0."
Further back, Rosalin Kuiper's Team Holcim - PRB had been working hard to close the gap to the leading four after being caught on the wrong side of a low pressure system the previous day. British sailor Alan Roberts acknowledged that the heavy cloud cover offered him "no silver linings right now," but said the crew was staying positive. With over 700 nautical miles remaining on the fifth leg, plenty could still change before the finish. "Whatever the clouds bring we will try to use it to our advantage. At the moment it's bringing us wind – so not too bad," he said.
Aboard sixth-placed Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Positive, French sailor Sébastien Marsset reported that he was enjoying the solid breeze and flat water. "We haven't had so much of these conditions since we started so it's good to enjoy it," he said. "It's good to see that we are doing a better job [of helming] than the pilot. The sea state is not so good and I think the pilot struggles to get us in between those small sideways waves. So I think we are doing better while we can see. Night time will be different, that will be difficult."
At 1200 the frontrunners were starting to bunch up on the approach to another wind transition zone south of Sicily. Paprec Arkéa still led, with Biotherm two nautical miles back. Allagrande Mapei sat three miles further behind in third, and Team Malizia was another five miles astern. Despite that gap, Team Malizia was sailing in good breeze and closing fast.
