Leg 7, Day 12: 55°58’ South; 67°16’ West is under 300 miles away now

Cape Horn, the most feared and respected landmark in world sailing, is now just 300 miles from Dongfeng’s bow as one of the toughest Southern Ocean legs in Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread round-the-world race history comes to a close.

The last few miles promise to be wild and dangerous for the six crews still racing with the westerly breeze set to clock around to the north and increase from 30 to 40 knots.

Reports from the boats in the last 24 hours suggest the breeze has been very shifty and squally with huge sudden spikes in wind strength that can catch the sailors out.

On Team Brunel, Bouwe Bekking’s crew managed to avoid broaching even with the gennaker still flying when they hit a squall line which packed windspeeds of up to 54 knots.

The sea state going past the Horn is going to be epic at this relatively late stage in the year with huge waves rolling out of the west – heading from the cauldron-like conditions of the Pacific into the southern Atlantic. Think Francis Chichester and Gypsy Moth IV and the classic painting of him passing Cape Horn in 1967 - “Horn Abeam” by Montague Dawson.

In all crews’ minds are thoughts about John Fisher who was lost overboard from Team Sun Hung Kai Scallywag two days ago. Several skippers and crew members from other boats have now recorded tributes to him.

Scallywag has issued a detailed account of what happened which underlined that he was knocked overboard, not by water on deck but by the mainsheet system whipping across the cockpit when the boat went into an involuntary gybe. Fisher had unclipped just moments before that happened to move forward to tidy a sheet tail. The crew believes he was unconscious before he hit the water.

As far as the race goes, Team Brunel continues to lead and looks set to gain the bonus point for being the first past Cape Horn. She has been ploughing a lonely furrow to the north east of the rest of the fleet and is now barreling down the rocky Chilean coast just 20 miles from its off-lying islands.

Brunel was just over 90 miles ahead of second-place Vestas 11th Hour Racing with Dongfeng Race Team third, another three miles back. MAPFRE is fourth, just over 10 miles behind Dongfeng, with Turn the Tide on Plastic fifth (+133.2) and Team AkzoNobel sixth (+141).

In terms of distance to the finish, Itajai is now under 2,230 miles away for Charles Caudrelier and his crew on Dongfeng who have travelled 5,310 miles since setting sail from Auckland 12 days ago.

Latest position report at 0700 UTC:

1. Team Brunel. DTF: 2,054.5nm
2. Vestas 11th Hour Racing. DTL: 51.3nm
3. Dongfeng Race Team. DTL: 68.2nm
4. MAPFRE. DTL: 88.0nm
5. Turn the Tide on Plastic. DTL: 96.8nm
6. Team AkzoNobel. DTL: 100.4nm