There is currently a four-way battle at the top of the Volvo Ocean Race points table after the top half of the fleet passed through the leg one scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha.

Ian Walker's Green Dragon led the way at 1224 GMT to earn four points, while Ericsson 4 won the battle with PUMA to round in second place at 1359 for their 3.5-point windfall.

Ken Read's men pocketed three points when they rounded at 14:16. Telefónica Black, meanwhile, passed the landmark at 1448 to collect 2.5 points.

The top four boats are now shoehorned atop the points table with six points apiece. Not only that, but the 1600 GMT position report showed the top four boats separated by just eight miles on distance to finish.

On the points table, the overall pecking order is headed by Telefónica Black - based on the Alicante in-port race performances (see provisional leaderboard below).

And if current form holds, it will soon become even more crowded at the top. On Thursday evening (GMT) Telefónica Blue was roaring towards the gate at speed and is forecast to collect 2 points, giving Bouwe Bekking's men - you guessed it - six points. When that eventuality takes place, sometime around midnight based on current conditions, Bekking will re-gain the top position on the points table.

Although they are likely to drop to fifth on the ranking overnight, the Green Dragon squad couldn't be happier to square up to the leaders on the points table. With 8 points available to the first boat into Cape Town, getting back in touch with those at the top of the table was critical.

"We're delighted on board. We've been leading for a few days now and every single position report we're watching to see if they're closing in us, but we're holding them off," said skipper Ian Walker as the boat roared through the scoring gate.

"I don't think anybody was expecting us to do as well as this at the start of the race," Walker said. "I guess we were hoping if things went really well for us to be in the top three. But we certainly never expected anything like this at the first gate."

*Provisional leaderboard (including first scoring gate) as at 16:00 GMT Thursday

1. Telefónica - 6pts
2. PUMA - 6pts
3. Ericsson 4 - 6pts
4. Green Dragon - 6pts
5. Telefónica Blue - 4pts
6. Delta Lloyd - 1pt
7. Ericsson 3 - 0.5 pts
8. Team Russia - 0.5 pts

*TIES: When there is a tie on total points between two or more Boats, the tie will be broken in favour of the Boat with the most first places counting Legs and In Port Races, and, if the tie remains, the most second places, and so on.

If after completing the procedure described above a tie still exists, it will be broken in favour of the Boat that has the highest place on the last Leg.

Any ties still remaining shall be broken in favour of the Boat that has the highest place on the next-to-last race (Leg or In Port race) and so on until all ties are broken.

On an In Port Race day when there has been two races completed and there is a tie between Boats after the two races, the tie will be broken in favour of the Boat with the highest placing between the tied boats in the second race on that day, and shall be reapplied if ties remain.

Visit www.volvooceanrace.org for all the latest news!

The Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09 will be the 10th running of this ocean marathon. Starting from Alicante in Spain, on 4 October 2008 with in-port racing, it will, for the first time, take in Cochin, India, Singapore and Qingdao, China before finishing in St Petersburg, Russia for the first time in the history of the race.

Spanning some 37,000 nautical miles, stopping at 11 ports and taking nine months to complete, the Volvo Ocean Race is the world's premier yacht race for professional racing crews.