On board Express
The stars extinguished one by one, the day dawns.
The sea and the sky take on new colors.
It's time for Arthur Hubert (
Monatoutenergie.fr
) to take the plunge.
Express
crossed the body of water to observe the operation.
The spinnaker inflated again, the sailor could explain what he had just done:
“Since 4 a.m. I had something stuck in the keel.
I tried quite a few reverse gears and it wouldn't go away.
I even messed up once by putting my spinnaker counter sheet in the propeller.
I spent some time solving this problem.
All of that screwed up the night and my performance, but that's life.
With the spinnaker down and the boat pointing to the wind, the dive was very fast.
In wetsuit and with my triathlete goggles, I pulled on the 4 to 5 m line that was in the keel and it went straight.
Morale is not at the top but I know that there is worse in life.
»
In front of him, the race was still just as intense.
The first to point their bows at the Arcachon buoy, the Guillaume Pirouelle (
Normandy Region
), Tom Laperche (
Bretagne-CMB Performance Region
) and Corentin Horeau (
Mutuelle Bleue
), continued their wave jumps.
Tom Dolan (
Smurfit Kappa-Gingspan
) was stalking them around 6 a.m.:
“The conditions are perfect for sleeping, so I keep taking naps.
Everything is fine on board, it's calm, downwind, calm.
The passage of the Arcachon brand was a little windier than expected, we had up to 25 knots on the doors, it sent off well.
This allowed me to attack a bit and come back to the leading group, I'm pretty happy.
There was a bit of traffic at the buoy, I passed with Robin Follin (Gulf of Saint-Tropez-Territoire d'Exception), and things were clogging up a little behind.
This morning, before daybreak, there is 10/12 knots of wind.
»
For the rest, vigilance was going to be in order when he did not know that he had just taken the helm of the gondola:
"We are under a large spinnaker, without too much sea, except for a small swell which caresses kindly the back of the boat, and we are full of stars, and lightning in the distance on the ground, it's quite pretty.
The wind today is going to decline little by little, we're going to have to change sails, and we're going to finish upwind to tack with a wind that's going to shift quite strongly, before gradually picking up.
»
Charlotte Yven (
Team Vendée Formation-Botte Fondations
) was also quite satisfied with her first day on the final stage of La Solitaire 2022:
“I'm pretty happy with my start to the race along the coast towards Arcachon.
I made a small shift to the right which proved to be quite profitable to join the leading group.
Then it got a little worse, since at the buoy, I fell asleep in wind mode, and I forgot to set the alarm clock.
Inevitably, I did not find myself exactly where I wanted.
But I still went with the first ones.
And, I jibed, I got back into the right tempo.
This morning, I'm sailing under a large spinnaker, in 10 knots of wind.
The conditions are quite nice, the boat stalled.
It's good enough to take naps and prepare for the rest of the race.
This Monday, we will surely have shifts in the wind,
you will have to be on the file to take them in the right direction and do the edges approaching towards The Farallones Islands.
But I'm in pretty good shape to attack this day.
»
120 miles of the 640 for the stage between Royan and Saint-Nazaire had just been swallowed up.
The road to the Spanish brand would occupy their thoughts.
They are only 31 still in the race, Frédéric Duthil (
Le Journal des Entreprises
) having announced his retirement for medical reasons around 3 am.