Tension aboard SodebO

Whilst he has less than 2,000 miles to go and a deficit of just 330 miles on Francis Joyon’s time, Thomas Coville knows that the coming days will be very demanding and leave little respite.

Indeed weather forecasts suggest a brutal conclusion which will be far from comfortable for the skipper of the Maxi Trimaran, who set out from Brest some 54 days ago.

Contacted by telephone this morning during his fantastic climb northwards with both a remarkable trajectory and a perfect heading/ speed compromise, Thomas described the immediate context and explained what he is expecting of the last days at sea: “I’m currently sailing in winds of between 18 and 25 knots, which are very shifty due to the influence of squalls”.

Next on the agenda? “A zone of high pressure and hence lighter winds which will require me to make a number of manoeuvres with only little time to recuperate”.

And after that? “There’s barely nothing which is appealing. We’re going to get a severe ‘hammering’ from 35 to 40 knot winds, with big seas and around 6 metre waves. I going to have to grin and bear it and dip into my physical resources”.

In short then, all the way to the finish it’s all down to the weather. Currently there are oscillating squalls then a variable light period around the Azores High. This will be followed by a strong SW’ly air flow, veering round to the NW with very big seas.

In human terms, this will be far from easy for a skipper that set out nearly eight weeks ago, who has slept very little and, as he confided the other day, has a boat which has naturally suffered a few “scratches and scrapes”. Sailing a multihull single-handed in these conditions is certainly not a pleasure cruise after 54 nights which merge into days. Thomas knows all too well what lies ahead: a course very close to the wind making headway in big seas, which will require extreme vigilance, a lot of manoeuvres and hence a lot of hours on deck.