The first plan is about safety for the people and safety for the boat. We are not going to race in the next hours. We will try to go fast of course, but we do not want to break anything or anybody - that is the goal over the next hours.
“I am just sitting behind the wheel because it is very windy. You can see Fabien driving and Kevin is on watch with Stu and Marie. I am on watch also.
We are waiting for the wind, the very, very strong wind. The wind is going to increase very quickly. The next three days are going to be three of the most difficult of the race because it will be tough. Looking at the the last position schedule, I think we are too far south unfortunately and that is not good, but we can wait and see.
It is going to be 40 knots and 45-50 knots in the gusts. I hope it will not be as much. The bad news is it is not going to be downwind. It will be at an angle of between 90 and 80 degrees which is probably one the toughest angles to sail in strong wind. I hope the sea state is not going to be too bad…it is going to get colder going south and it is going to be very hard.
The first plan is about safety for the people and safety for the boat. We are not going to race in the next hours. We will try to go fast of course, but we do not want to break anything or anybody - that is the goal over the next hours.
I think we are going to sail like we do when we are inshore, gybing a lot inside the ice limit which is not easy. I think it is going to be tough - gybing every one or two hours in 30 knots. This is not easy and especially not in this part of the world. I told you I am not going to race. We will go through it and we are already prepared for that. We have done a lot of planning. We have already thought of every sail we are going to put up and every manoeuvre and try to keep it very simple.
We will see, but my first worry is not to break anything and hope that our opponents do not fare too badly in the next few hours.”
