“And you hit, hit, hit… that’s your way of loving!”

Back to the grind for the Trin’40 fleet: those who were gliding along in the sunshine yesterday are now dealing with grey skies, choppy seas, and headwinds! After rounding the Spanish waypoint—Guillaume Pirouelle (Sogestran – Seafrigo, 197) still in the lead, in what looks like a masterclass in perfection!—our thirty solo sailors are beginning their fourth day of racing. It means heading back home… but in conditions that are anything but a pleasure cruise!

“A few last-minute twists”

“We’re on port tack, sailing upwind in the kind of sea only the Bay of Biscay can throw at us! It’s short, it slams, it’s wet—it’s a change from the start of the race, but it makes the race complete!” summed up Guillaume L’Hostis (Alternative Sailing - Constructions du Belon, 196) early in the night. He’s holding a solid third place, 6 miles behind Corentin Douguet (SNSM - faites un don, 209), who sits in a strong second.

Despite a slightly tricky start to the race, the sailor from La Trinité—who celebrated his 33rd birthday on the day the Trin’40 began—is now giving himself quite the present, climbing back through the fleet in a way worthy of the Artemis II mission! “Last night, you really had to stay on it: the conditions under spinnaker were extremely unstable, both in strength and direction,” explained the sailor, who is keen to show that the training at the Orla Bay center has paid off. “It was like an elastic band—one moment you gain, the next you lose—so you had to stay very focused and opportunistic, because there were small tactical moves to play. On that front, I’m pretty satisfied!”

The only downside for someone who describes himself as “super happy” and “feeling great”—yes, when they’re happy, we’re happy, so we’ll quote it—is: “my little frustration is that I don’t have a spoon or a peeler. So eating is a bit complicated, and peeling carrots even more so!”

And those carrots are far from cooked! “There’s still a long way to go,” the skipper of Alternative Sailing - Constructions du Belon explained. “We’ll be sailing upwind to the second Gironde waypoint, then we’ll hit a tricky transition phase with very little wind. And once we’re through that, the wind should settle in from the north, so we’ll be tacking. And in the Bay of La Trinité, I think we can expect a few last-minute twists!” So there’s still plenty on the menu to chew on!

“There’s plenty to play with—we’re not getting bored!”

Also storming back like a fighter jet at the end of the downwind leg, Thimoté Polet (Zeiss, 208) was already imagining himself “eating a proper meal at home.” But before that, the 25-year-old sailor from Le Havre knows he’ll have to prove what he’s made of!

“Right now I’m glued to the leading pack, trying to keep up with them upwind. I know I’m a bit less quick in these conditions—we’ll see if I can hang on with them all the way to La Trinité! There’s going to be some light wind as well. In any case, there’s plenty to play with—we’re not getting bored!”

So much so that it’s hard to find time to sleep…

“I’m short on sleep, so I’ll have to manage to get some rest at some point,” said the skipper of Zeiss. Because even if these daredevils are all doing their best to prove otherwise, the human body—last time we checked—still needs a bit of rest!

“Last night already, I thought, ‘we’ll be able to get some rest,’ but the downwind leg turned out to be much more complicated than expected. I haven’t slept much in the last 24 hours,” explained Thomas Jourdren (Trimcontrol - NST Racing, 210), who also made a strong move on the downwind leg, catching up with the chasing group led by Luca Rosetti (Maccaferri Futura, 212).

“With the others around, it’s not easy to let go—but you have to! There’s still a long way to go, almost two days of racing left. I’m discovering all this—I’d never done a solo race before, only spent one night alone at sea!”

“I don’t have time to be tired”

There may be one sailor, however, who has found the secret to an endless day—the kind that lets you cheat on sleep.

“I don’t have time to be tired,” smiled Pierre Le Boucher (Penfret, 176), who, even before the start was given, hadn’t stopped opening his toolbox. First came a charting software issue—“but I managed to find a solution for that”—then it was a water intake problem in his engine, which failed, taking with it his ability to generate power on board.

“I tried to rig something up using the ballast water intake, but it only works when we’re above 13 knots, so it’s not great,” admitted the serial tinkerer. “I’m in full degraded mode: all the screens are off, I’m using the backup autopilot because it requires fewer displays… The only advantage of sailing upwind is that the autopilot doesn’t consume too much power!”

Will the solution to his troubles come from the sky?

“Tomorrow we should get some sunshine, which will be good for my solar panels. But if I can’t recharge, I’ll have to sail reaching under gennaker. The goal is still to finish the race—I’d hoped to do better competitively, but if I have to, I’ll do that!”

Despite all these setbacks, don’t expect the recent Jules Verne Trophy holder—slightly less fortunate here than his teammate Guillaume “the Conqueror” Pirouelle—to complain!

“I’m still loving it—it’s great!” he concluded.

And this enthusiasm, bordering on masochism, is far from unusual in a fleet that’s nevertheless being shaken like a cocktail shaker!

“First of all, thank you for giving me a race with conditions that allow me to play—light winds and upwind sailing!” wrote Djemila Tassin (Magenta, 153). The only sailor with a pointed-bow design, the Belgian skipper is delivering an outstanding performance, leaving a number of much more recent “scow” designs in her wake. And all that, almost blind!

“I haven’t had my onboard computer since Quiberon Bay, so no weather or routing—I’m basically sailing in ‘mini’ mode, with paper charts and a direct course!” explained the skipper of Magenta, between encounters with whales and pods of dolphins.

“For the rest of the race, it’s about staying in rhythm and not giving in to fatigue. It looks like I can keep a good result if I maintain the pace, but we’ll see if I can hold on over time! The goal is not to burn out, but to give it everything!”

That’s the delicate balance that will occupy them all on this fourth day of racing—not the last, but one that’s already starting to take its toll.

“What a joy to return to this little piece of universe that is mine on my boat,” wrote Djemila Tassin. And what a joy, for us, to follow their wakes and their words, comfortably seated behind our screens.