New records remain on the horizon: Is the "Comanche" plan working?: The fastest transatlanders are hurtling towards the Caribbean

Now the RORC Transatlantic Race, which has so far got away with a "clean slate", has also recorded its first cancellation: Shahid Hamid's crew on the Swan 58 "Omii" has withdrawn from the race. However, Remy Gerin's 65-foot classic sloop "Faïaoahé" from the co-organising Yacht Club de France is back in the race. The two-handed team had interrupted its race on Monday to rectify a problem with the autopilot within the framework of the regulations. The ambitious duo have now managed to do so and are back in the race. At the same time, the tracker clearly shows that the crew on the Gunboat 68 "Tosca" appears to be struggling with a technical problem. The team, which also includes Vendée Globe star Alex Thomson on his first transatlantic passage as part of the team on a multihull, has dropped back to 27th place in the interim ranking after the time sailed in the field of the remaining 29 boats. There has been no official explanation for this drop so far.

At the front of the field on Tuesday, it was business as usual: the MOD70 "PowerPlay" was racing ahead at around 20 knots, followed by her two multihull rivals "Argo" and "Maserati". Although the fast 100-foot maxi "Comanche" is now around 300 nautical miles behind the third-placed "Maserati", the crew still have their record plans firmly in their sights. Navigator Will Oxley had already described the current scenario the day before and reported: "Things are going well for us on 'Comanche'. Our goals are a safe passage and a safe crew, the line honours and a new record. We felt we could achieve these goals without pushing too far north and having to pass the front in too much wind and wave. We had a slow twelve hours at the end, but we should be through the worst of it." On the morning of the fourth day at sea, "Comanche" made very rapid progress at a speed of 24 knots. Updated calculations confirmed that the crew had excellent prospects of breaking the existing monohull record (10 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes) for the RORC Transatlantic Race. On the morning of 11 January, the forecast for the expected total sailing time of "Comanche" was 8 days, 9 hours and 28 minutes.

In the overall IRC rankings by calculated time, on the other hand, the lead is constantly changing. At midday on Tuesday, David Colllin's Botin IRC 52 "Tala" was just ahead of Stefan Jentzsch's IRC 56 "Black Pearl" and Dominique Tian's French Ker 46 "Tonnere de Glen". In fourth place was Maximilian Klink's Botin 52 "Caro", which had already led several times in the meantime.

The smallest boat in the fleet has a remarkably strong IRC ranking: The JPK 10.10 "Jangada" and her double-handed crew were in fifth place on day four of this transatlantic test. Jens Lindner's Volvo Open 70 "Hypr" sailed towards the finish in Grenada in IRC 13th place. The British-German trio with skipper Richard Tolkien, Neal Brewer and Frank Sturm from Berlin are in 17th place after the time sailed, which is worth 20th place in the IRC interim ranking. Click here for the tracker (please click!).

UPDATE11 January, 11.20 p.m.: In the evening, there was finally a sign from the "Tosca" crew, who have now abandoned the race. Without giving any further reasons for heading for the Azores, a short message simply said: "All safe, returning to port." By late evening, the Gunboat 68 had reached the harbour of Ponta Delgado on the Azorean island of São Miguel, according to tracking. Co-skippers are Ken Howery and Alex Thomson. Many observers had already noticed the extreme northerly course of the "Tosca" on Tuesday afternoon (see above). However, neither the crew nor the race organisers had provided any further information on possible problems on board, even after enquiries until late Tuesday evening.