Ysbrand Endt (Holland), Pip Hare Ocean Racing (IMOCA)

I’m fine. The conditions are great at the moment. We’re at about 120° downwind, we have three sails up; our gennaker, our staysail and our mainsail, all full up and we’re making about 12-13 knots of boat speed. We’re only missing sunshine, but everything else is quite good. Our strategy now is to continue our way and find a nice spot near the Canaries, possibly come out near Lanzarote and then being propelled forwards to the Cape Verdes. It’s great to do this race and sail together with Pip and we’re trying to push each other and the boat and in the meantime have fun. 

It was marginal preparation (after coming in as a substitue co-skipper after Andrew Baker was injured kitesurfing two weeks before the start). But happily Pip and me have sailed quite a bit together in the past and she knows I’m sailing a lot with my work, so she was convinced it wouldn’t be a problem, and same for me.