Sam Goodchild (Britain), skipper, Leyton (Class40)

(On the early rivalry with favourites Aïna Enfance and Avenir)

We’re keeping an eye on them (Aïna) but we’re keeping an eye on everybody else, there’s Crédit Mutuel in the north as well, who are obviously dangerous and there are boats that become dangerous. Aina is definitely one of the favourites, and they’ve got the same boat, so any gain we have on them is going to be pretty minimal. In the last 12 hours or so they’ve had a bit of a plus on us, which we didn’t really expect. But we’re jsut to keep things in one piece and stay in the game until we get into slightly nicer conditions.

(On how hard the conditions are)

Today, it’s easier physically, but mentally harder because the wind is really not very stable, it’s shifting through 30-40 degrees and going from 10 knots to 18 knots, which is not very relaxing and not very easy to keep speeds up, especially when it doesn’t seem like many of the boats are in the same wind, so you can’t really compare yourself to everyone else because you don’t know if they’ve wind as you for the last hour or two. It’s the first time we’ve been able to go on deck without putting a smock on, which is nice, but it’s a bit more mentally challenging. But the first few days for sure were pretty full on, with waves over the roof andover the deck and being drenched the whole time and everything is a little soggy and damp. Lookign forward to being able to dry that off again today, because tonight and tomorrow again look a bit more bumpy going upwind again. 

(On the dismasting of Lamotte Module - Creation, skippered by Britain’s Luke Berry)

It definitely hit a nerve because it happened to me last year (in the Route du Rhum) basically in the same point in the race in the first couple of days and the mast dropped down. Lamotte were  a mile ahead of us, it was night time, but we saw them on the AIS, and all of a sudden they weren’t there anymore and we saw a few flashing lights on their deck go past us. We discussed it between us (with co-skipper Fabien Delahaye), what do you think’s happened, neither of us wanted to say it, but we both kind of thought they’d lost the race. So, we called our shore team and said if you can find out how they broke it, it would be nice to know because we’ve got exactly the same boat and exactly the same rig, so it definitley hit a nerve when I did it last year and you’re in a transatlantic race and on the first night it’s game over. It hurts quite a lot, so I feel for the guys and hopefully they’ll be back stronger next time.