Jérémie Beyou (France), Charal (IMOCA)

It's going really well, we found some sun and the winds are a little more manageable; we had an active day with gybes and choices to make in a sustained wind up to 30 knots. We have a long port tack with wind more manageable. We hesitated a lot between the two options, south or west, it cost us a good thirty miles on the PRB / Apivia along the coast of Portugal, since then we’ve passed the ridge (of high pressure) and we’ve found good angles. That’s put us well in the lead, it's great. It was rather a psychologically tiring start to the race, we managed to find a rhythm in the last day or two. We had our first breakfast this morning, we’re getting things in place. I just went around the boat, everything is fine.

We have no real flight phases since the start, we were on the VMG downwind from Portugal. We’re not flying, we’re not using all the foil. In the trade winds at VMG bearing, there is no advantage over the (older) daggerboard boats. Over boats like that of Armel (Banque Populaire), we almost have an advantage. But to fly, you have to climb to a high angle.

We’ve got an A3 (sail) up, we’re 140° to the wind, in 17-18 knots, the sea’s not badly arranged, we’re going well, it's great. For the Doldrums…we started to look, it looks ok, but I think we shouldn’t hang around, it can change quickly. We must be careful passing the Canaries, there is a bit of strategy involved.