After a tough 24 hours of sailing almost upwind, today the sheets have been cracked off and the eight-strong Volvo fleet is reaching making life onboard is a little easier. "We can boil water without having to hold the kettle so that it does not jump out of the galley," says Mikel Pasabant from Telefónica Black (Fernando Echávarri / ESP).

But, as the fleet keeps trucking south to skirt the South Atlantic High, at dawn this morning the leaders, Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael / BRA) had unwelcome company. PUMA (Ken Read / USA) was just a few miles to leeward of Telefónica Black and the leading four, including Green Dragon (Ian Walker / GBR) and were in a tight bunch.

Brad Jackson from Ericsson 4 (Torben Grael / BRA) says he is reminded of the close racing of the Volvo Ocean 60s, predecessors to today's Volvo Open 70, when he says that the top four boats were all in sight of Ericsson 4 yesterday. They have also been joined by PUMA, which Jackson says, they are little tired of.

"Three's company out here in the Atlantic," says Ken Read cheerfully. "We have been accused of making this a match race so far because we have been in very close contact with Ericsson 4 for just about half of the race. So today we lost Ericsson 4 off to leeward and on comes Telefónica Black to take their spot in rotation."

Telefónica Blue (Bouwe Bekking / NED) who because of her easterly position is showing less distance to the finish, which puts her in second place currently, also had unwelcome company, but not in the form of another boat.

"It seems to be a dangerous strip of highway we are on today," writes navigator Simon Fisher. "We had a very near miss with a very nasty looking log covered in barnacles and a metal and all sorts of other things that would be perfect for removing appendages."

"After a quick breath of relief, and some joking about how we may have found ourselves in Rio some months sooner than planned, we had another near miss. This time it was something living. We couldn't make out properly what it was, but, judging by the hole it left in the water, and the speed it went away, it was pretty big and not best pleased to see us. We'll be sure to keep our eyes peeled for the rest of the afternoon," he says.

Fighting at almost the bottom of the league is Ericsson 3 (Anders Lewander). Ahead of them is Delta Lloyd (Ger O'Rourke) and behind them, the Russian Team (Andreas Hanakamp / AUT) with Kosatka.

"This is a hard time for us," says MCM Gustav Morin. "It doesn't feel like our hard work is paying off," he adds. Morin says that according to their watch captain and race veteran, Magnus Olsson, it is a known dilemma among ocean-race veterans, that, after one and a half to two weeks of sailing and not doing too well, it doesn't take much for the crew to get grumpy.

"We just need to focus on what we can do better all the time and think positive. See the good stuff that we do. I like to talk about what has gone wrong and then just leave that behind," Olsson advises the crew.

At 13:00 GMT today, boat speeds were averaging 15 knots plus, with Ericsson 3 recording the highest average of 18.3 knots during the hour preceding this position report. Both the Ericsson boats recorded the highest 24-hour run of 383 nautical miles. The whole fleet had made small gains, with Delta Lloyd making the most, but only a mere eight nautical miles.

It won't be until the fleet turns east and hooks into the strong westerly breeze that will take them on course to Cape Town, that a true picture of which boat is in pole position will emerge, and, at present, no one has made that move.

Leg 1 Day 15 - 13:00 GMT Volvo Ocean Race Positions
(boat name / country / skipper / nationality / distance to leader)

Ericsson 4 SWE (Torben Grael / BRA) DTF3157
Telefónica Blue ESP (Bouwe Bekking / NED) +0
PUMA Racing Team USA (Ken Read / USA) +1
Telefónica Black ESP (Fernando Echávarri / ESP) +7
Green Dragon IRL/CHN (Ian Walker / GBR) +10
Delta Lloyd IRL (Ger O'Rourke / IRL) +23
Ericsson 3 SWE (Anders Lewander / SWE) +36
Team Russia RUS (Andreas Hanakamp / AUT) +91

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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.