Widely varying winds Saturday have seen the whole Volvo Ocean Race fleet scrambling for positions and enabled PUMA to sneak past Telefónica to take the lead.
PUMA Ocean racing powered by BERG hit the front as the fleet was scattered by increasingly inconsistent breezes in the Malacca Strait.
At the 1900 UTC position report they had edged into a one nautical mile (nm) lead over Telefónica after coping best with the rapidly changing wind conditions which saw the boats ranging in speed from six to 24 knots at times.
As daylight faded this evening the breeze became more and more unstable forcing the fleet to head closer to the Malysian shore in the hope of more consistent night time breezes off the coast.
Leaders Team Telefónica saw their lead over second placed PUMA steadily eroded until at just before 1900 UTC the two boats split left and right and PUMA emerged as the new leader.
Behind the top two the CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand crew have had to sail out of their skins to hold off the rapidly charging Groupama sailing team who had been eating into their advantage all day and closed to within 0.5 nm at times.
Tonight CAMPER can breath a little easier having put a three mile gap between them and the French, for the time being at least.
Despite having temporarily lost the use of their code zero headsail for repairs earlier in the day, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing had also been able to close down the top four a little and tonight sit 36 nm behind the leader.
In sixth, Team Sanya also gained a few miles but remain almost 110 nm off the lead.
