There was more frustration for Ellen MacArthur and the crew on Kingfisher II this week when the northerly winds that had looked set to give them a quickfire start to their bid for the Jules Verne Trophy vanished into thin air.

The all-important weather window, which was vital to their initial southerly sprint, never materialised, forcing the 14-strong crew to stay on standby at the project's base in Lorient, France.

"It's just not going to happen," said an anxious MacArthur.

"The high we were looking at in the east will not stabilise enough to guarantee good northerlies.

"We are now looking at a weather model that shows another potential weather window developing for the middle of next week."

Meanwhile, her rival boat, Geronimo, which started out on their Jules Verne attempt at the start of the month, set a new record from the start line off Ushant to the Equator of six days, 11 hours, 26 minutes and 21 seconds.

The giant catamaran crossed the Equator a massive one day, ten hours and 34 minutes faster than Bruno Peyron's time in 2002.

That broke Sir Peter Blake's 1994 ENZA record time of seven days, four hours, 24 minutes.

And that was despite finding a rare giant squid, measuring around 25 feet, attached to their rudder just days into their campaign.

Skipper Oliver de Kersauson was not forced, however, to follow in the footsteps of Jules Verne's fictional character Captain Nemo in cutting off the squid's tentacles. He merely stopped the boat and the creature swam off.

For the latest information on Kingfisher 2 go to: www.kingfisherchallenges.com