British sailor Ellen MacArthur has retained the lead in the Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race despite having to make emergency repairs to her Kingfisher boat.

But at 0700 GMT on Tuesday fellow Briton Mike Golding, on Ecover, had closed the gap between himself and MacArthur to just two miles.

MacArthur's hopes of winning the race were hit when the lashing that holds the gennaker halyard block to the top of the mast broke.

It meant the British sailor had to drop the spinnaker and scale the 17-metre mast in gusty conditions to re-secure the halyard, a task which took almost two hours.

Frenchman Joe Seeton, lying in third aboard Arcelor-Dunkerque, is now more than 400 miles behind with Roland Jourdain in fifth.

Retirement

Meanwhile, Switzerland's Steve Ravussin still leads the 60ft multihull fleet on Technomarine but Jean Le Cam has been forced to quit the race due to the amount of repairs needed on his boat Bonduelle.

Le Cam was involved in a collision with Franck Cammas's boat Groupama on the first day of the race.

Organisers predict the first multihull will reach the finish in Guadeloupe between Thursday evening and Friday morning while the first monohull will follow on Saturday morning.

The race began in the French port of St Malo on 9 November.