We are joining the solo circumnavigaters 5 days into the Velux 5 Oceans race today. And to be honest, I actually clear forgot about this around the world race!

No matter, though. Things are just starting to get interesting - in the race and at the Velux 5 Oceans race website. The online race report puts Bernard Stamm, the Swiss skipper in first place, having passed Madeira early this morning (at around midnight) on his port side.

The reason I said that things are only just getting interesting at the website, is because the official online "race viewer" is now starting to look intersting. The race viewer is a SWF visualisation of the progress in the race. You clearly see the courses the different yachts have sailed and what their race positions are.

You can zoom in and change the angle of your view, and if that is what you're after, you can zoom right in and stare at a stick figure of any racing yacht's skipper. Cool stuff, right Dan? Here is a link, if you want to check out the Velux 5 Oceans Solo round the world race viewer yourself.

At 05:30 GMT today (27/10/06), Skipper Bernard Stamm, in his yacht Cheminees Poujoulat, was located at 32° 22.3497 N, 18° 14.2066 W, heading 210°, at a speed of 12.2 knots.

The website dramatically states that "the elastic cord connecting race leader, Bernard Stamm, and Kojiro Shiraishi in second position has hardly moved", overnight. Which is just a pretty way of saying, "nothing much happened".

The way I understand things, some skippers were subject to in-port penalties, but they are scheduled to get going again today. I am shy to say that I don't know why they were penalised, but I promise to let you know as soon as I find out.

Skipper Unai Basurko (in yacht Pakea), skipper Graham Dalton (in yacht A Southern Man - AGD) and skipper Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (in yacht SAGA Insurance) was set to restart racing today.